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After years starring in Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, Mariska Hargitay is now highlighting the subject matter in a new way by producing I AM EVIDENCE, a sobering and timely look at the way rape kits have been left to languish, a policy decision with the ghastly effect of enabling serial perpetrators to continue assaulting women.

The HBO documentary ‘I am Evidence,’ produced by actress Mariska Hargitay, follows women who reported sexual assaults and provided DNA evidence but discovered it was never tested.

There are estimated to be hundreds of thousands of untested rape kits currently sitting in police storage across the country. So, how did we get here?

That’s the question actress and activist Mariska Hargitay answers in her new HBO documentary “I Am Evidence,” set to air April 16. The film, co-produced by the “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit” star and Trish Adlesic, and co-directed by Adlesic and Geeta Gandbhir, takes a human approach to an epidemic that has reduced survivors, their stories and their trauma to a box of evidence. 

As thousands of sexual assault victims wait for their rape kits to be tested, California lawmakers are taking renewed action to eliminate the backlog.

Ahead of Monday's private screening of the upcoming HBO documentary, "I Am Evidence," which exposes the rape kit backlog across the country and shares stories of sexual assault survivors, California legislators detailed their efforts to bring justice to victims.

If you believe in justice for the victims of sexual abuse, then make Mariska Hargitay’s HBO documentary - I AM EVIDENCE - coming to HBO in the next few months - a priority to watch. It will enrage you to know that over 400,000 rape kits in the USA have remained untested, leaving victims without justice and predators on the loose to rape again.

When Mariska Hargitay landed the role of Detective Olivia Benson on “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit,” she had no idea that it would turn her into an activist for victims of sexual assault, domestic violence, and child abuse. But in 2017, almost two decades after the long-running show began, she’s helped spearhead a mission to eliminate the rape-kit backlog in the U.S. — and has produced a documentary with HBO and her former SVU coworker Trish Adlesic called “I Am Evidence” that helps bring the issue to light.

Following the I AM EVIDENCE screening, Wayne County, Michigan Prosecutor Kym Worthy facilitated a discussion about the value of testing sexual assault kit evidence and establishing a victim-centered approach to sexual assault response.

If you were to watch almost any episode of “Law and Order: Special Victims Unit,” it’s likely that some form of sexual assault would take place, the victim would be given a rape kit at the hospital, and the dedicated detectives investigating would send the kit off to be tested for DNA evidence.

After 18 years of starring in Law & Order: SVU, Mariska Hargitay is taking on sexual assault offscreen.

The star of NBC’s long-running procedural series is a producer of I Am Evidence, a new documentary highlighting the hundreds of thousands of untested rape kits in the United States. The dormant status of these kits, some of which have been left in police evidence storage rooms for decades, mirrors the pattern of how the criminal justice system has historically treated sexual assault victims. Meanwhile, perpetrators are never held accountable for their crimes.