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April: A Month of Healing, Education and Advocacy
As we and our community mobilizes with the renewed commitment to change these statistics—and create a world free of this violence—I wanted to share with you some of the exciting, hopeful, important work that’s happening at Joyful Heart this month.
Last Night in Georgia
Last night, rape kit reform passed in Georgia. But our advocacy to bring meaningful rape kit reform around the country still carries on.
An Inside Look at our February ENDTHEBACKLOG Newsletter
Today, we're giving an inside look at our most recent ENDTHEBACKLOG newsletter for our email subscribers. Today's topics: a new $41M proposed in the federal budget, what we think belongs in comprehensive rape kit legislation, laws being considered in 18 states and more.
Hawai‘i Takes a Meaningful Step Towards Rape Kit Reform
Today I had the honor and privilege of testifying before the Hawai‘i State Legislature’s House Committee on Human Services in support of House Bill 1907, which would establish a system for tracking rape kits and mandate a deadline for the crime lab to process the evidence.
Joyful Heart Foundation and Partners File Amicus Brief in Ohio Case That Could Undermine Justice for Rape Survivors
We have just filed an amicus brief on behalf of the State of Ohio, which is appealing the Ohio Court of Appeals’ decision to use the state’s backlog of untested rape kits in part to dismiss rape and kidnapping charges against an alleged serial rapist. Partners AEquitas: The Prosecutors’ Resource on Violence Against Women, Rape Abuse Incest National Network, Ohio Alliance to End Sexual Violence and National Alliance to End Sexual Violence (NAESV) joined Joyful Heart in the filing.
It's a failure of the criminal justice system - and we can end it.
The rape kit backlog—untested rape kits numbering in the hundreds of thousands across the country—represents a failure of the criminal justice system to protect survivors and to hold perpetrators accountable.
This Matters
Testing rape kits send a fundamental and crucial message to victims of sexual violence: You matter. What happened to you matters. Your cases matter." - Mariska Hargitay
