Natasha Alexenko
At the age of 19, Natasha Alexenko was raped and robbed at gunpoint in New York City. Due to a backlog of thousands of rape kits, it took nearly 10 years to process her rape kit and identify her attacker. While her kit collected dust on a shelf, the man that raped Natasha was on a nationwide crime-spree. Driven by a need to prevent this ongoing injustice, in 2011 she started Natasha’s Justice Project, a nonprofit dedicated to eliminating the untested sexual assault evidence kits throughout the country. Her story was featured in HBO’s critically acclaimed documentary, Sex Crimes Unit. Natasha is a survivor, an activist, and an educator who is hoping to change the criminal justice system’s response to sexual assault.
