Survivors of sexual assault may soon have a new way to find out the status and location of rape kits instantly and anonymously.
Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine says a free online program would allow sexual assault survivors to enter the barcodes on their rape kits to follow them from medical facilities, where they’re collected, to crime labs, where they’re tested, to law enforcement for storage or destruction.
“Rape survivors have already gone through unimaginable trauma, and not knowing where their cases stand can also be agonizing,” he said.
The tracking program would take about $1 million from the Victims of Crime Fund to launch and would need legislation to require all agencies to participate.
The legislation is being sponsored by two Republican women state lawmakers, Sen. Stephanie Kunze and Rep. Dorothy Pelanda.
In February, DeWine announced that Ohio officials had cleared a backlog of almost 14,000 rape kits. State lawmakers require that every rape kit must be submitted to a testing facility within 30 days.
