Mariska Hargitay is a really, really good egg. Not only has she been delighting us as Captain Olivia Benson for 25 years on Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, she’s spent that tenure bringing her work home with her in the most productive and impactful way possible. Moved by fans recounting their rape survival stories to her, Mariska established the Joyful Heart Foundation, through which she launched the End the Backlog initiative that discovered hundreds of thousands of untested rape kits in police stations across the country. In working to reform rape kit usage, Mariska met prosecutor Kym Worthy. In fact, Mariska helped secure the funding necessary to test 11,000 kits Kym had found in a Michigan evidence room, which led to solving thousands of sex crimes in that state alone. Dateline host Andrea Canning just appeared on the Today show to tout the latest Dateline podcast that focuses on Kym and Mariska’s work:
Mariska Hargitay hasn’t reserved her impressive detective skills for the TV screen — she also solves some cases in real life too.
Recently, Dateline NBC’s Andrea Canning joined the Today show to discuss the newest episode of Dateline True Crime Weekly and revealed that Hargitay, 60, helped one Michigan prosecutor with thousands of sexual assault cases.
The Law & Order: Special Victims Unit star funded prosecutor Kym Worthy on her path to solving thousands of cases. Worthy first discovered that over 11,000 untested rape kits were sitting on a shelf in an evidence room. She took matters into her own hands and worked to get all of them tested.
However, money was needed to get all of these kits tested, and as Canning said, “So, who stepped in? None other than Law and Order’s Mariska Hargitay.”
Canning, 51, explained that the actress “helped them raise the money to get this done.” As a result, thousands of cases were solved and they discovered 22 serial rapists.
The Dateline broadcaster also noted that Worthy and Hargitay’s work is “having a ripple effect across the country [and] is making changes everywhere — for police departments and for prosecutors’ offices.”
This isn’t Hargitay’s first time assisting real law enforcement. Earlier this year, in April, while filming one of the final episodes of season 25 of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, she was approached by a little girl who believed her to be a real police officer based on the badge she wore as part of her character’s outfit.
At the time, a witness told PEOPLE that the little girl had been separated from her mother in the Anne Loftus Playground in Fort Tryon Park and asked the actress for help. Hargitay obliged and then halted production for 20 minutes to help the child locate her mother and to console them both.
The witness noted that the young girl was both oblivious to the film crew and Hargitay’s scene partner, Ice-T.
Everytime we get to cover Mariska Hargitay it is such a tonic. Her goodness is so authentic! There’s no inflated ego, or sense that she’s doing this for her own PR. By her own account, she felt like her acting job opened a door to work she had no prior intention of pursuing, but could not turn away from once it entered her life. She’s previously described it as “I didn’t take this job on SVU to do this work. But I think I was meant to do this.” The older I get the more I see that as an art in itself: to be able to embrace a path that takes you by surprise. I’m also now really hoping that we see Mariska at the convention next week. She’s such a strong advocate for the biggest issues at stake in this election: women’s rights and reproductive rights. You know, normal things.
photos credit: IMAGO/MediaPunch / Avalon and via Instagram
I know she helped a lot in Wayne county Michigan with the backlog in rape kits.. I remember seeing her and Kim Worthy, the prosecutor being interviewed about it years ago. It brought me to tears thinking of all those victims and evidence that just sat in evidence storage untested. I have loved her for that ever since.
I think we need to be clear that the money *could* be allocated to test these kits, but rape is a very low priority crime for police departments across the nation. Because women are a low priority. Rape victims are not the right kind of victims for police and prosecutors alike.
Vote.
This is the part of the story I can never let go of when we hear about her work, 11,000 victims IN ONE ROOM being ignored because other things were prioritised.
Thank goodness there are people who care because so many do not.
Exactly this. Women are either ignored or called liars.
THIS. 11,000! That number represents individual rape survivors who were re-traumatized by having to painstakingly tell and retell their stories, along with having physical evidence taken from their bodies, and then…nothing happened.
What makes this more galling is that most police departments care about their clearance rates, which you think would motivate them to get these test results even if getting justice for survivors isn’t their priority.
VP Kamala Harris specialized in prosecuting child sexual abuse cases. I hope it will help to have someone like her as the leader of our country starting in 2025. So glad she is our VP now.
This is one of the best initiatives I ever read.
Bravo.
Marissa comes across as a truly happy, joyful person who knows her position gives her advantages and chooses to use those advantages to help others. I can see why survivors share their stories with her: she seems to be a good friend who will listen and help you. Plus, she has been (seemingly happily) to a handsome, talented man who seems to support her causes and career and well-adjusted children. Given the trauma of her early life and being raised in Hollywood by her actor dad, she has turned out to be an accomplished and compassionate person.
The people who ALLOWED those rape kits to sit there untested for years should be charged with obstruction of justice. TWENTY-TWO serial rapists in one state alone? If we assume similar backlogs and results across the country, accounting for population sizes and proportions, we’re looking at possibly 800 or more serial rapists who haven’t been caught but have evidence just sitting there collecting dust.
@Izzy that’s what shocked me too, 22 serial rapists out of 11,000 tests! And that was just one evidence room in one city/county. Police need to reconsider their damn priorities because these cases could be solved so quickly, get these men off the streets, and allow their thousands (!!!) of victims to start healing.
She is living proof that people can overcome the most horrific childhood tragedies.
The DNA backlog has been a known problem in the US for 20+ years. This means that legislators at every level have allowed women to live in torment, never knowing it their attacker was alive, dead, or imprisoned. Never knowing WHO attacked them. Let that sink in.
I contributed to Stop The Backlog years ago and then didn’t hear anything about it. I’m so happy to read that the funds accomplished so much!
Good for Mariska.
I just read this week this week that Oregon has at least 800 rape kits in backlog:
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/oregon-has-backlog-of-over-800-untested-rape-kits-new-osp-dashboard-shows/ar-AA1oyd1J?ocid=BingNewsVerp.
This is an important cause and kudos to Mariska for getting out there to call attention to it!