Avalon Center Gives Thumbs Up To Domestic Violence Cellphone Law

A local advocacy group says a bill dealing with cell phones will benefit domestic violence victims.

If signed into law by Governor Haslam, the bill would make it easier for domestic violence victims to get off the cellphone plans of their abusers and have rights transferred to themselves.

Crossville Avalon Center President Rachel Bruning said the bill makes it easier for survivors to split ties with their abusers and move on to re-establish their lives.

“Cellphones have really become essential tools in our everyday life, and so I think this bill really signifies to survivors that this is just one more hurdle that they really didn’t have a strong recourse for and it was just making it one step harder for them to leave their partners.|

Bruning said the bill is a big deal in terms of safety because abusers often use cellphones to stalk their victims through GPS locators on phones.

In the past, Bruning said Avalon would do a lot of safety planning with survivors, encouraging them to turn their GPS locators off.

“Ultimately a lot of times it came down to, ‘you’re going to have to let that number go and change your contract’,” Bruning said. “Sometimes for survivors, they didn’t have that kind of money, so they might have to let that bill go and face collection issues just so they can get away from the control of the abuser.”

The bill will allow victims to ask a court to force phone companies to transfer cellphone rights and billing responsibilities away from the abusers and to the victim. Victims would be able to make the request when filing for an order of protection or make a separate request of the court.

Bruning said Avalon will immediately begin using the new law through the order of protection process, if approved by Governor Haslam.