SEPTEMBER 10 (Reuters) — Actress and UN special envoy for refugees Angelina Jolie joined the former British Foreign Secretary William Hague in the House of Lords in London on Tuesday (September 8).
They gave evidence to a parliamentary ad hoc Committee who were charged with considering the UK’s policy and practice of preventing sexual violence in conflict.
The Committee took evidence from Hague, Jolie Pitt and Baroness Helic as part of an initiative Hague described as PSVI (Preventing Sexual Violence Initiative).
Hague and Jolie launched the UK’s preventing sexual violence initiative three years ago.
Hague explained their motives for bringing the subject to further attention.
“Part of our objective in the prevention of sexual violence initiative has been to ensure that this subject is debated, discussed, all over the world in parliaments and governments all over the world and I hope many other parliaments will do so following the example of this house.”
Jolie praised Hague for his interaction with rape victims in Congo.
“It did mean a great deal to me to be with the Foreign Secretary of the United Kingdom in the Congo and hear him speak to girls and express his opinion that they should have no shame, that it is not their fault, that the shame should be on the perpetrators and they he would do what he could,” she said.
Meanwhile Hague explained that he was inspired by Jolie’s 2011 film ‘In The Land of Blood and Honey’, about rapes committed during the Bosnian War in the 1990s.
In relation to her film she said she had done her best but felt “limited as an artist.”
“Of course as an artist that we can express certain things and we can get people around the world feeling what is right and we can get people outraged or they’re condemning or they’re…but it really has been a real change in my view of the world working closely with the government of the United Kingdom and understanding that there is that for all of that good will it’s all wonderful but laws need to change, policy needs to change, governments and leaderships need to come together and that will make the real change for all the wonderful people that I’ve worked with and met with in the field, and who are heroes of mine and who I absolutely love – they can only do so much.”
Hague explained that Jolie was able to bring “global reach” to the cause and that she was a “missing ingredient.”
Jolie praised the impact of the initiative so far.
“I think in very human terms we have seen that many of the victims have now come out of the shadows and I think that is, that cannot be quantified. That people around the world that have gone through these things now feel that they can speak forward, they know that this is being discussed. That they feel that if they speak it’s worthy of something, worthy of their time, worthy of their efforts, and their pain and their tears. That they will be heard and they can feel that things are moving and there is some momentum.”
