Angelina Jolie Is Returning To London To Fight Stigma Of Sexual Violence With Film Festival

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Published on Wednesday, 30 November -0001 00:00

Written by Elle

         The 43-year-old will take part in the Preventing Sexual Violence in Conflict’s film festival in London later this month.She's visited refugee camps all over over the world, created a wildlife preserve in Cambodia previously under threat of poachers, and created the first Millennium Village Project in Asia.Now, Angelina Jolie is bringing her humanitarian efforts to London.Next week, the 43-year-old actress will take part in the Preventing Sexual Violence in Conflict’s film festival, 'Fighting Stigma Through Film'. The event will focus on harnessing the power of film 'to help fight the discrimination and social stigma faced by survivors of warzone rape and other forms of sexual violence in conflict', according to a press release from the Foreign & Commonwealth Office in the UK.The mother-of-six, who is the co-founder of Preventing Sexual Violence in Conflict, will lead a Q&A session with Dr. Denis Mukege, a Nobel Peace Prize winner, and City of Joy Centre Director Christine Schuler Deschryver.
         'Artists and human rights defenders often take significant risks to tell the truth about crimes committed against defenceless women, children and men during war,' Jolie - who was awarded an honorary dame hood in 2014 - said in a press release.'The perpetrators of war crimes often go to extreme lengths to keep the truth from being told. So I am proud to support the filmmakers taking part in the festival.' She added: 'Stigma compounds the suffering of survivors of warzone rape. It is an unbearable injustice on a human level, and it is a major obstacle to achieving justice for victims of these sickening acts of violence. We need to examine and change the entrenched social attitudes that treat sexual violence as an inevitable consequence of war or lesser crime – including harmful attitudes to women.'
         In 2014, Jolie and UK Foreign Secretary William Hague travelled to Sarajevo to meet victims of the conflict in their on-going campaign to end sexual violence against women in war.Films to be screened at the festival include The Prosecutors, a kickstarter backed film about a Congolese and Bosnian lawyer’s fight to get justice for survivors of sexual violence, and Silent War, which accounts by women and children systematically abused by members of the Assad regime.

 source : Elle