Jolie adds star power to summit
Actress says sexual violence is a weapon of war aimed at civilians — ‘it has everything to do with power’
Actress Angelina Jolie and British Foreign Secretary William Hague yesterday began a fourday summit on ending rape in war, calling for an end to the “culture of impunity” and more prosecutions.
United States Secretary of State John Kerry, who will attend the conference in London this weekend, said the delegates from 117 countries wanted to “relegate sexual violence to the annals of history”.
The summit is the fruit of a two-year campaign by United Nations special envoy Jolie and Hague, who have visited the Democratic Republic of Congo and Bosnia to meet victims of rape during conflict.
Opening the conference, Jolie said she and Hague had discussed a woman they met in Bosnia who was still too ashamed to tell her son she had been raped.
“This day is for her,” said Jolie. “We believe it truly is a summit like no other.”
Hague said: “This will be the greatest concentration of effort, of discussion and decision ever seen in combating sexual violence in conflict.”
Jolie said it was a “myth” that rape was an inevitable part of war, adding: “There is nothing inevitable about it — it is a weapon of war aimed at civilians. It has nothing to do with sex, everything to do with power.”
He said Britain “cannot turn aside” from the atrocity, and the world had a duty to tackle the issue with the same determination it had tackled slavery in the past.
Almost 150 governments have endorsed a declaration of commitment to end sexual violence in conflict.