Why was Joe Biden on 'Law And Order: SVU'? President-elect and Mariska Hargitay's connection with rape victims
America is at the cusp of change with President-elect Joe Biden and his VP nominee Kamala Harris winning the people’s mandate. While many Biden supporters feel he can usher in an era of stability, some might not be aware that Biden has been actively involved to end violence and assault against women. The former Vice President even appeared on superhit crime drama series ‘Law And Order: Special Victims’ Unit’ in 2016 that is now returning for its 22nd season.
The show, touted as one of the longest-running primetime live-action series in American history, features a squad of NYPD detectives. It is headed by lion-hearted yet empathetic detective Olivia Benson (Mariska Hargitay).
The show has many episodes based on real crimes about violence against women, assault, rape, kidnapping, murder, pedophilia and more. It claims to have portrayed stories that are “ripped from the headlines”.
Mariska star Hargitay has often reportedly mentioned how the SVU helped create awareness on heinous crimes related to women as evident from various fan letters. “Your show changed my life, they would say. I've never told anyone this, but I was raped, and I've been carrying this around”, mentions a fan letter to Hargitay.
Now as Biden has nearly won the presidency and SVU is also returning with its latest season 22, it is worth knowing how the two are connected over the issue of crimes against women.
Welcome to the #SVU squad, @VP Joe Biden. #TrustFin pic.twitter.com/n5UfS0WJky
— 𝐋𝐀𝐖 & 𝐎𝐑𝐃𝐄𝐑: 𝐒𝐕𝐔 (@nbcsvu) September 29, 2016
Why did Biden appear on the show?
It was in 2016 that Joe Biden appeared in 'Law and Order: SVU' Season 18 and the reason was to speak up for assault victims. His cameo was featured in the episode titled ‘Making A Rapist’. That episode showed a man wrongly convicted of rape being exonerated and released after 16 years.
The evidence that cleared him of all charges came from a previously untested rape kit in Detroit. The episode featured Biden, who was then VP under the Obama administration explaining how such rape kits are key to detect rapists.
For the unversed, “Rape kit” is a term used to describe forensic evidence collected by a nurse following the sexual assault of a victim. Women who submit to such exams undergo an invasive and hours-long examination of their bodies to collect evidence immediately after the trauma of sexual abuse. Evidence from these kits helps identify serial rapists, exonerate the innocent and assist in building court cases.
However, there has been a backlog of these testing kits in America where many of the kits go untested and uncounted. Biden was there to speak out against the backlog of these rape kits at the police department and delivered a remarkable monologue.
“The greatest abuse of power is rape,” he said in the series. “It takes a woman a long time to heal. When a victim isn’t believed, when she goes through the invasive process of having a rape kit put together, and then it’s stuck on the shelf somewhere, and then the rape kit is never, ever tested, we fail her.”
Hargitay’s foundation named Joyful Heart which helps assault victims estimated that 175,000 backlogged kits were found nationwide as of 2014 and so the issue was to be addressed.
Biden and Hargitay’s connection
Biden went on to appear in the series as crimes against women have been a close issue to him. In the past, he has authored the Violence Against Women Act in 1994. VAWA provides prosecutorial protection and support for women who are victims of violence and this law was later expanded to include unmarried women and the LGBT community. He has also worked to fight domestic violence backing a $41 million budget proposal aimed at reducing rape-kit testing backlogs.
SVU star Mariska Hargitay and Biden share a connection over the issue of rape-kit testing backlogs. The Emmy Award-winning actress who became an "accidental activist” spoke on the issue of untested rape kits in 2018 in the documentary, 'I Am Evidence'.
There she sat with sexual assault survivors and discussed how American cities still have untested rape kits, representing hundreds of thousands of traumas and unsolved crimes. She worked with her foundation to make sure these kits get tested.
In 2016, her organization Joyful Heart Foundation conferred Biden with the inaugural Finnegan Award for his commitment to ending domestic violence. Hargitay, who is the president and founder of the organization, herself presented Biden with the honor.
“My father was a graceful, decent, honorable man who taught me that the worst of all sins was the abuse of power — whether it was abuse of economic power, or political power, or physical power. And he raised us all to believe that the cardinal sin of all was for a man to raise his hand to a woman or child, or another man who was subservient to him,” the 73-year-old Biden said during his acceptance speech in 2016.
Hargitay also shared a glimpse of the award given to Biden in an Instagram photo captioned, “My heart is full of joy and gratitude for @thejhf's invaluable ally, my friend, and my hero in this work, @VP Biden, whom we honored at the 2016 #JoyfulRevolution Gala last night.”
The May 2016 photo captures the politician and actress in a jovial mood holding the award as a commitment to give respite to assault victims. Now as the two are going to make a comeback with the presidency and show respectively, it would be worth watching what it holds for the future of women.
'Law & Order: SVU' Season 22 will premiere on NBC on Thursday, November 12, at 9/8c.