How Mariska Hargitay Stepped in to Help Investigate ‘Over 11,000’ Unsolved Sexual Assault Cases

Warning: This post contains descriptions of sexual violence.

Both on and off screen, Mariska Hargitay is a champion of women. While many know her as the iconic Olivia Benson in Law & Order: SVU, she’s also someone who helps what’s right.

The podcast Dateline True Crime Weekly recently talked about how Hargitay funded prosecutor Kym Worthy’s biggest mission: to solve rape cases after she discovered that over 11,000 untested rape kits sitting on a shelf in a police evidence room. That’s right, read it again: there were over 11,000 untested rape kits.

For those who don’t know, rape kits are a vital tool to help gather evidence following a sexual assault. Per Helping Survivors, they’re used to collect the victim’s clothes, head hair, pubic hair, blood, and anything under the nails. It all gathers this to help the victim find justice.

And over 11,000 were untested, but Hargitay helped raise money to help undo this major infraction of justice.

“They found 22 serial rapists among these kits and they needed money for this effort so who stepped in? None other than Law & Order’s Mariska Hargitay,” podcast host Andrea Canning told the Today show via Entertainment Weekly. “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, from police departments to prosecutors’ offices.”

This is truly an amazing thing that Hargitay, Worthy, and all the people who helped this issue be solved.

Hargitay has opened up in the past about her own sexual assault story in an essay written for People.

“He was a friend. Then he wasn’t. I tried all the ways I knew to get out of it. I tried to make jokes, to be charming, to set a boundary, to reason, to say no. He grabbed me by the arms and held me down. I was terrified,” Hargitay wrote. “I didn’t want it to escalate to violence. I now know it was already sexual violence, but I was afraid he would become physically violent. I went into freeze mode, a common trauma response when there is no option to escape. I checked out of my body.”

She added, “I removed it from my narrative. I now have so much empathy for the part of me that made that choice because that part got me through it. It never happened. Now I honor that part: I did what I had to do to survive. For a long time, I focused on creating a foundation to help survivors of abuse and sexual violence heal. I was building Joyful Heart on the outside so I could do the work on the inside.”

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This article was originally published on sheknows.com.