Vanessa Nason, who runs our “Counting the Uncounted: The Sexual Assault Evidence Collection Kit Project,” reflects on a year spent tracking down the extent of the rape kit backlog in America.

After hearing stories of women having to travel long distances to receive the rape kit exams that are guaranteed to them under the Violence Against Women Act, we began to file the same request with the health departments in all 50 states asking for locations where sexual assault forensic examiners are available on staff or on-call. Like most of the other data surrounding sexual assault policies, what we’ve found so far varies widely, and there are large deserts - huge, mostly rural areas without easy access to a medical examiner