Module 3
Victims' Rights

Protecting the Victim’s Address

Many states have laws that create address confidentiality programs for victims of domestic violence. Some of these laws also expressly cover victims of sexual assault. For victims who qualify, these programs provide a substitute address that the victim can use on any document requiring an address where including their actual residence could threaten their continued safety from their abuser. For example, voting records, driver’s licenses, utility bills, their children’s public school records, etc. Note that under these programs the victim is generally required to file an application with supporting documentation of their victimization.1

Consult your agency’s state-specific supplemental guide regarding whether your state has an address confidentiality program.

Disclaimers and Footnotes

1. Greater Boston Legal Service and the National Network to End Domestic Violence have a compilation of state address confidentiality laws available at https://nnedv.org/mdocs-posts/state-by-state-listing-of-address-confidentiality-programs-2016/.

This module will be available to you as soon as you complete Module 1. To complete a module, you must read each of the lessons and complete the review quiz at the end.

It is important to finish Module 1 so that you have sufficient context for the rest of the program. After that, you'll have full access to jump between lessons however works best for you.

Tip: In the left sidebar, you'll notice a vertical bar of squares. Each square represents a lesson in that module. You can see at a glance which lessons you've done (brightly colored) and which ones you have not (gray).

Return to Module 1