Angelina Jolie calls upon the international community to end the Syrian civil war and increase aid for refugees as she visits refugees in Jordan

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Published on Saturday, 10 September 2016 18:31

Written by Daily mail

          Angelina Jolie has called upon the international community to end the Syrian civil war and increase aid for refugees. The actress visited a refugee camp in Azraq, Northern Jordan, in her role as special envoy of UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), and met Syrian children displaced by the conflict.Five years into the Syrian conflict, she said brutal violence rages while the UN Security Council remains divided on a political solution. During the trip, following on from her surprise visit as a guest at the UN summit in London yesterday, the Hollywood A-lister mingled with laughing children and delivered a speech. In her role, she focuses on major crises resulting in mass population displacements and engaging with decision-makers on global displacement issues.Yesterday, she stunned delegates from 80 countries with a speech at the major peacekeeping summit, saying the organisation's reputation had been undermined by cases of sexual abuse.  Angelina Jolie made a surprise appearance at a major UN peacekeeping summit, where she told delegates from 80 countries that the organisation's reputation had been undermined by intolerable cases of sexual abuse by peacekeepers.She movingly described her desire for justice and accountability of the women she had met in refugee camps who had been abused by international troops.Jolie said: 'We all know that the credibility of UN peacekeeping has been sadly undermined by the actions of a few intolerable cases of women and children being sexually exploited by the very people in charge of protecting them.'
         She told a summit of ministers from around the world in London's Lancaster House that countries had to meet their commitments to peacekeeping missions and aid appeals.The summit communique called for the UN to double the number of women in military and police contingents involved in peacekeeping operations by 2020 and promised a 'zero tolerance' approach to sexual exploitation and abuse by troops.Jolie-Pitt told ministers and dignitaries at the meeting: 'The fact is that increasing the number of UN peacekeepers alone will not be enough to resolve the conflicts that we are experiencing.'It has to be accompanied by a new way of conducting peacekeeping, one that has the rights and protection and involvement of women at its heart.' She added: 'The signing of an agreement is actually the easy part.'What is harder and what is much more important is implementation.'We are living through a time of public disillusionment with commitments on paper that are not met in reality; with UN Security Council resolutions that are ignored, aid appeals that are only partially met and fail to address root causes and allegations of sexual misconduct that are not investigated or prosecuted.'In my view, from my experience in the field, prosecutions around the world would mean more to the survivors of violence than any number of new Security Council resolutions.' 

source: Daily mail