Angelina Jolie and William Hague may not seem like they would have much in common, but the actress and politician are united on one very important matter: to stop the use of sexual violence as a war weapon.
Jolie, who is a goodwill ambassador for the UN refugee agency, was accompanied by the British foreign secretary on a trip to Bosnia, where they paid tribute to the victims of the 1995 Srebrenica massacre and to the almost 20,000 women, mostly Muslim, who were raped during the three-year war in Bosnia.
Dressed all in black and wearing a headscarf, Angelina Jolie and Hague visited the Srebrenica memorial centre museum, and cemetery, where they met with women who were raped during the war, as well as with those who lost family members during the massacre. Jolie was brought to tears as she listened to the stories of the rape victims in Srebrenica.
Earlier in the day, Jolie was in Sarajevo where she partook in a conference on sexual violence in war. Addressing the room, Jolie said, ‘The use of rape as a weapon of war is one of the most harrowing and savage of these crimes against civilians. This is rape so brutal, with such extreme violence, that it is even hard to talk about it.’
‘There can be no peace while women in conflict or post-conflict zones are raped with impunity,’ the 38-year-old actress added. Jolie and Hague will continue their campaign against the use of sexual violence as a war weapon in London this June, when they will co-host their own conference on the matter.
Picture: Rex
This article originally appeared on The Debrief.