HOUSTON, TX – After the savageness of a rape, getting caught in the justice system might seem like a second violation.
Until 2011, when a state senate bill sped up the process, thousands of untested rape kits would sit idly on the shelves, slowed in a process of red tape. Six-thousand of those are in Houston alone.
Rape victim, Levinia Masters says, “I found that they stored all those hours and pain in a rape kit and placed it on a shelf where it and my justice sat untested and forgotten about for the next 20 plus years.”
Senator Wendy Davis stopped in Houston to raise awareness of justice for rape victims, assuring them that the system works now.
“Those back-logged rape kits are finally being tested and survivors can now have evidence of their assault collected at any hospital,” Davis said on Monday.
Additional legislation broadened the hospitals that could test kits, and expanded the communication to victims.
Now the state is required to give rape victims status updates about their kits while their cases are reviewed in court.
You’ve probably seen Senator Davis’ controversial rape-case campaign ad that takes a stab at her opponent, Texas Attorney General, Greg Abbott; accusing him of siding with a corporation over a rape victim.
A spokesman for Abbott says “The ad is a continuation of the type of rhetoric we’ve seen from a candidate who is paper-thin on substance.”
In the race for Texas governor, one thing that won’t be on backlog, the political punches of these two would-be governors.
