UNHCR Special Envoy Angelina Jolie carries out mission to Peru

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Published on Monday, 22 October 2018 12:36

Written by UNHCR

           UNHCR Special Envoy Angelina Jolie is carrying out an official visit to Peru this week. Peru is one of the countries most affected by the surge in Venezuelan refugees and migrants – the largest movement of people in Latin America’s recent history.Following up on the UN High Commissioner for Refugees recent visit to the region, Jolie is undertaking a three-day mission to assess the humanitarian needs of Venezuelan refugees and the challenges facing Peru as a host country, and to discuss the possible regional responses to the crisis.During her mission, the Special Envoy will meet refugees, representatives of the Government of Peru and organizations contributing to the humanitarian response. She will visit programmes providing protection and assistance to asylum-seekers, refugees and host families, and observe Peru’s generous response to Venezuelan refugees and migrants.The Special Envoy focuses on major displacement crises, representing UNHCR and the High Commissioner at the diplomatic level. The Special Envoy Jolie last visited Latin America in 2012, for a mission to Ecuador, her third visit to meet then Colombian refugees in the region.

 source : UNHCR  

The UN needs a new body to investigate war crimes so that no one can escape justice

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Published on Saturday, 29 September 2018 13:53

Written by Yahoo ! News

          The UN General Assembly is viewed each year through the prism of speeches by world leaders at the marble podium.But the UN exists for the millions of people worldwide who will never set foot in its corridors: the “men and women of nations large and small” whose equal rights to justice and security are enshrined in the UN Charter.In principle, the UN belongs as much to the poorest refugee as it does to any President or Prime Minister. In practice, the interests and priorities of powerful member states determine which violations of human rights are addressed and which continue unchecked.World leaders gathered at the UN this week should recommit to the principle that there can be no long-term peace and security without accountability for war crimes and crimes against humanity.This is a matter of self-interest as much as idealism. The erosion of the rule of law in any part of the world eats away at the foundations of our long-term security. Peace settlements that give amnesty for crimes against civilians perpetuate insecurity. Don’t take us on our word, look at history.The United Nations was born out of World War Two and the deaths of some 80 million people. The brave generation who fought and endured concluded that no country would be safe from the threat of war without international laws and institutions to prevent armed conflict and hold aggressors accountable.It is why planning for the creation of the UN began long before military victory was assured. It is why the Allied Powers prosecuted Nazi leaders for war crimes in a court of law, rather than simply vanquishing them on the battlefield.
          "There is no nation so powerful that it can afford a weakening of the rules-based international system". The principle that no country should be allowed to use its sovereignty as an excuse to attack its neighbours or commit crimes against its own people derives from that experience.Since then we have seen decades of efforts to erode impunity for crimes against humanity, including the war crimes tribunals for Cambodia, Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia, among others, and the International Criminal Court: set up not to supplant national justice but as a court of last resort in cases where there is neither the will nor the capability to achieve justice locally.The existing system is far from perfect and justice has been selectively applied, but our goal should be to improve, not undermine, the gains of recent years, at a time of growing threats to international security. There is no nation so powerful that it can afford a weakening of the rules-based international system.The conflicts in Syria and Myanmar trigger every trip wire for collective diplomatic international action through the UN: alleged war crimes against a civilian population, threats to international peace and security and, in the case of Syria, the repeated use of banned weapons. Much of the same could be said of the conflict in Yemen.Yet millions of the citizens of these and other countries still see no credible prospect of justice and accountability. We hear again the excuse of national sovereignty being used to shield those responsible for atrocities. If this goes unchallenged, there will be no deterrent against future aggressors and the result will be an even more dangerous international environment.

 source : Yahoo ! News  

Angelina Jolie Made the Case for Refugee Education in a Powerful Op-Ed

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Published on Saturday, 01 September 2018 17:37

Written by Teen Vogue

        She said it's "how you rebuild a country."
       Actress and activist Angelina Jolie penned a powerful essay published by CNN on the Syrian refugee crisis, which she called “a major challenge for our generation.”But, she argued, finding a solution to the crisis is not hopeless. She says education is the key to rebuilding war-torn countries and building up refugees to their fullest potential.“We often talk about refugees as a single mass of people, a burden,” Jolie wrote, saying we do not see refugees as individuals with goals and potential. But she said many young refugees aspire to work and study hard, contribute to society, and eventually help their homelands. “[Education], in the end, I thought, is how you rebuild a country: not with peace agreements and resolutions, as necessary as those are, but with millions of school report cards, exams passed, qualifications obtained, jobs acquired, and young lives turned to good purpose rather than spent languishing in camps,” Jolie wrote.Syria has been ravaged by civil war since March 2011. According to the UNHCR, the U.N. Refugee Agency, over 10 million Syrian people have been displaced during the war’s seven years — like Hussin, who fled with her family to Jordan when she was only 12 years old.Jolie said meeting two young Syrian refugee women with “contrasting lives” helped her to come to this conclusion.One, she said, put aside her dream of becoming a doctor in order to help raise her siblings when her mother was killed in an airstrike and her father was separated from his children. At 14, the woman married and became a mother. The Freedom Fund has found that many young refugee women have been forced into childhood marriage in order to avoid extreme poverty.“Even if the war ended tomorrow, she has been robbed of her childhood and the future she might have had,” Jolie wrote.
       The other young refugee fled from Syria to Iraq alongside her family when she was 16. She enrolled in an Iraqi school, and is now studying at an Iraqi university to become a dentist. Jolie wrote that the woman told her she hopes to eventually return to Syria to help her homeland.With global conflicts outlasting entire childhoods, Jolie wrote that countries are “losing out on an entire generation of education and skills amongst its young people” — something she called a “tragedy.”“Conversely, investing in the education of refugees is the most powerful way we can help them to be self-sufficient, and contribute to the future stability of countries torn apart by conflict,” she wrote.Jolie, of course, is not the only one fiercely advocating to educate young refugee women. Perhaps most famously, Malala Yousafzai won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2014 for her advocacy for young Pakistani women’s education — even after being shot in the head for her work. And in Syria, refugee Muzoon Almellehan is referred to as “the Malala of Syria” for her refugee education advocacy.“We need education, because Syria needs us,” the then 18-year-old Muzoon said at the United Nations in 2016.Jolie concluded her essay by calling for curriculums to be established for refugee children in primary and secondary school so they are more prepared to pursue college. She also called for wealthier nations to “address humanitarian funding shortfalls so refugee parents don't have to choose between food and schooling for their children.”

       You can read Jolie’s full essay here.

 source : Teen Vogue  

Angelina Jolie in awe of Syrian refugees who are living in Iraq – ‘Home feels so warm and full of love’

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Published on Wednesday, 18 July 2018 05:50

Written by TVNZ

           United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) Special Envoy, Angelina Jolie, returned to northern Iraq last month to meet with refugees who fled Syrian and are now living in Iraq.She met with Ronia, a Kurdish widow whose children have special medical needs, and is among many mothers struggling to care for the families."If I were living with nothing, just eating bread and onions, but they were not sick, then I would be fine. But this illness has taken a huge toll on us," Ronia explained.Ronia is raising five young girls all on her own. Two of her daughters have thalassaemia, a genetic blood disorder that stunts their growth and can be fatal."My husband suffered from thalassaemia… He died as there was no treatment here," Ronia said.Ronia's family fled Syria nearly six years ago.She takes her two daughters Roshda and Leila to hospital every other week for blood transfusions but says they can't get all of the medical treatment they need in Iraq."I am afraid I will lose them like I lost their dad," Ronia said.Jolie gave the single mother credit."Somehow she's managed to have a home that feels so warm and full of love and her children smiling through all of this. It is such a credit to her," Jolie said.The visit marked Jolie's 61st mission - her fifth visit to Iraq - with the UN Refugee Agency since 2001.

 source : TVNZ