Mariska Hargitay‘s Joyful Heart Foundation has achieved a milestone more than a decade in the making.
On Friday, it was announced that after 16 years, the End the Backlog campaign has successfully driven rape kit reform legislation in all 50 states, Washington, D.C. and Puerto Rico. Maine became the final state to enact at least one of the campaign’s six pillars of reform, marking a nationwide breakthrough in efforts to eliminate the backlog of untested rape kits and help prevent future backlogs.
According to End the Backlog, the six pillars of rape kit reform include mandating the submission and testing of all backlogged kits, requiring the testing of all new kits, creating statewide rape kit tracking systems, conducting statewide inventories, ensuring survivors have access to the status of their kits, and securing dedicated funding to support submission, testing and tracking.
Hargitay — best known for playing Captain Olivia Benson on Law & Order: Special Victims Unit — founded the Joyful Heart Foundation in 2004 after her work on the NBC series deepened her awareness of the trauma survivors often carry. The organization’s mission is to transform society’s response to sexual assault, domestic violence, child abuse, support survivors’ healing and end violence. Central to that mission is the End the Backlog campaign, which seeks to eliminate the hundreds of thousands of untested rape kits stored across the United States so survivors can pursue justice and closure.
“Today marks a watershed moment not only for the State of Maine, but for every survivor who has asked if their rape kit was forgotten, if their truth was abandoned on a shelf, if they have hope of finding justice,” Hargitay said in a statement to The Hollywood Reporter. “This did not happen overnight. It happened because survivors spoke their truth. It happened because advocates refused to let urgency become complacency. It happened because Rep. Geiger, Sen. Bennett, and Sen. Duson, along with many other inspired legislators, championed a cause that demanded their persistence and years of dedicated work. And it happened because our community insisted that every survivor deserves accountability, transparency, and dignity in the handling of their kit.”
“This moment is a promise that the system can and will be transformed into a source of light, not darkness,” Hargitay concluded. “To the survivors who have carried this cause in their hearts: this milestone belongs to you. We are far from done, but how glorious to take this moment to honor how far we have come together.”