For Immediate Release: April 9, 2024
Contact: Olivia Hall, media@endthebacklog.org
NEW YORK – Today, the Joyful Heart Foundation applauds North Carolina for clearing their rape kit backlog of over 15,000 kits. Each kit represents a survivor, their experience, and the possibility for them to heal. Testing these kits signals to each North Carolinian that the Attorney General, Josh Stein, and his entire office, takes these crimes seriously. We’d also like to acknowledge the North Carolina Coalition Against Sexual Assault, a leader in the field for their incredible work done to eliminate this massive backlog and support survivors every day.
“Mr. Stein and the NCCASA, every lab worker, law enforcement officer, advocate, and nurse practitioner, had an essential role in making sure that each and every kit in North Carolina did not sit, languishing, on a shelf–as so many kits in so many states do,” said Ilse Knecht Director of Policy and Advocacy at the Joyful Heart Foundation. “We are proud to have partnered with these incredible people to make sure that every survivor has this path to healing and justice available to them. We hope that in the future, every state can say the same.”
North Carolina leaders at the local and state level have been taking steps towards fulfilling our six pillars of rape kit reform since 2017, including our first pillar, conducting an inventory of untested kits. In 2018, the state announced it had discovered more than 15,000 untested sexual assault kits across the state, and in the same year launched the statewide rape kit tracking system. The work continued with The Survivor Act in 2019, which included sweeping reforms that mandated new kit testing, required backlog kit submission and analysis, and funding. Thoughout the course of the state’s reform efforts, it has received Sexual Assault Kit Initiative grants that facilitated the clearing of the backlog. The state has one more pillar to pass: a victim’s right to know the status of their rape kit.
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End the Backlog is a program of the Joyful Heart Foundation, a national nonprofit organization founded by producer, director, actress, and advocate Mariska Hargitay with the mission to transform society’s response to sexual assault, domestic violence, child abuse, and support survivors’ healing.