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Mariska Hargitay is channeling the spirit of Olivia Benson. The Law & Order: SVU star has long been an advocate for victims of sexual violence through her Joyful Heart Foundation. But she eventually took her work a step further by helping to solve real-life crimes.  

Mariska Hargitay helps prosecutor get justice for victims of sexual assualt  

Mariska Hargitay sitting at a cafe table in an NYC park on the set of 'Law & Order: SVU' Season 26
Mariska Hargitay on the set of ‘Law and Order: SVU’ on August 5, 2024 | Jose Perez/Bauer-Griffin/GC Images

Dateline reporter Andrea Canning spoke about Hargitay’s good deed during a recent appearance on Today (via YouTube). 

Canning, who was promoting her new Dateline True Crime Weekly podcast, explained that Kym Worthy, a prosecutor in Michigan’s Wayne County, had discovered a backlog of more than 11,000 untested rape kits.

“She made it her mission to get all of them tested,” Canning said. 

But the county, which is home to Detroit, Michigan’s largest city, didn’t have the money to perform the tests. That’s where Hargitay came in.  

“She helped them raise the money to get this done, and it’s having a ripple effect across the country. It’s making changes everywhere — for police departments, for prosecutors’ offices,” Canning said. 

The efforts have produced real results.

“[Worthy] deserves the biggest pat on the back for this,” Canning said. “Thousands of cases were solved. They found 22 serial rapists among these kits.”

The ‘Law & Order: SVU’ has spoken out about the rape kit backlog before 

For years, Hargitay has been urging police and prosecutors to clear the backlog of untested rape kits. 

In a 2018 essay for The Atlantic, Hargitay wrote about the anger and frustration she felt when she learned that evidence that could put rapists behind bars was being ignored. A 2009 report from Human Rights Watch found that 12,699 untested rape kits existed in LA alone. The situation was similar in many other U.S. cities.

“I read the report with my head in my hands, lost for words, except for, “Oh, my God. Oh my GOD.” Soon we started seeing reports of similar backlogs around the U.S., adding up to hundreds of thousands of untested kits, of discarded victims, of perpetrators walking free, of wrongfully convicted people sitting in jail,” she wrote. “I felt as if my head were going to explode.”  

Determined to do something about the problem, Hargitay started the End the Backlog initiative through the Joyful Heart Foundation. She also produced I Am Evidence, a 2017 Emmy-winning documentary that highlighted Worthy’s efforts to clear the backlog in Wayne County. 

Her goal is to assure victims of rape and sexual assault that they are not forgotten. 

“[T]esting rape kits is about telling survivors, ‘You matter. What happened to you matters. Your case matters,’ she wrote. “Not testing rape kits says exactly the opposite.”

How to get help: In the U.S., call the RAINN National Sexual Assault Telephone Hotline at 1-800-656-4673 to connect with a trained staff member from a sexual assault service provider in your area. 

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