UN aid agency backed by Angelina Jolie is the latest to be embroiled in sex scandal as 19 allegations of abuse are made against staff
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- Published on Sunday, 04 March 2018 10:30
- Written by Daily Mail
The United Nations aid agency backed by Angelina Jolie has been hit by 19 allegations of sex abuse by staff in the past year alone, it can be revealed, with three of the alleged victims being under 18.The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), which received almost £100 million from British taxpayers in 2017, said misconduct complaints had been made against workers in Africa, the Middle East and Asia.On the eve of a crisis meeting to be held by Department for International Development (DFID) chiefs, this newspaper has also discovered that:
- DFID contractor Adam Smith International has admitted it has had ‘historic cases of sexual misconduct’;
- Human-rights group Amnesty International said it had dealt with three cases of sexual harassment;
- Prince Charles’s young people’s charity, The Prince’s Trust, said three workers had been disciplined for inappropriate behaviour.
Tomorrow, International Aid Secretary Penny Mordaunt hosts a ‘safeguarding summit’ with the Charity Commission to work on solutions to the abuse crisis. She has asked charities which receive money from the UK’s £13 billion aid budget to tell her what they have done about historic abuse allegations, and has had 161 responses so far. This newspaper can reveal some of the figures that have been provided by some of the biggest names in overseas aid. UNHCR, whose ‘special envoy’ is Hollywood star Angelina Jolie, said it had one substantiated case of abuse in 2016, for which a member of staff had been dismissed. It had 19 complaints of sexual exploitation or abuse in 2017, of which six are still being assessed. One alleged victim was 17. Details of two other cases involving under-18s are unknown. Ms Jolie declined to comment but a source close to the actress said she will find the allegations ‘upsetting’ and ‘inexcusable’ and has raised the matter with the agency.
Meanwhile, Adam Smith International – which had its government work frozen after The Mail on Sunday revealed alleged ‘dirty tricks’ to win contracts – said it was still preparing its response to DFID’s request for information and a spokesman said it was conducting ‘an internal review to determine the extent and nature of historic cases of sexual misconduct and how they were managed’.The Prince’s Trust, which received £14 million in public-sector funding last year, said: ‘Three staff have been disciplined for insensitive or inappropriate behaviour in relation to young people, not constituting sexual abuse.’ One was dismissed.Amnesty International, which does not receive public funding, said it had had three alleged cases of sexual harassment in the past ten years, resulting in a volunteer being dismissed. All cases were in the UK.Another DFID contractor, VSO, said last night that staff had made eight allegations of sexual misconduct by employees in the past three years. Six led to staff having their ‘contracts terminated’. All the wrongdoing occurred overseas.
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Angelina Jolie Gives Lecture as Visiting Professor at the London School of Economics and Political Science
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- Published on Thursday, 22 February 2018 18:45
- Written by US magazine
Nobody overslept and missed this class! Angelina Jolie taught a seminar on Monday, February 19, called “Women, Peace and Security” at the London School of Economics and Political Science.The 42-year-old Oscar winner, who is currently a visiting professor, spoke about human rights violations against women in conflict and their links to gender inequality. Afterwards, Jolie took questions from the class! Jolie delivered her first lecture at the prestigious London-based school in March 2017. “Im a little nervous, feeling butterflies,” she told The Evening Standard. “I hope I do well. This is very important to me.” The By the Sea actress had nothing to be worried about. After the lesson, students took to social media to praise her speech and share photos taken with their celebrity lecturer. “She’ll make an amazing visiting professor. So honored to hear her inaugural lecture at LSE on sexual violence, rape, working w/ refugees,” one student tweeted. Added another: “Incredible lecture by Angelina Jolie.” Jolie and Britain’s former foreign secretary William Hague founded the LSE Centre for Women, Peace and Security in 2015. “It is vital that we broaden the discussion on how to advance women’s rights and end impunity for chimers that disproportionately affect women, such as sexual violence in conflict,” Jolie said in a statement to The Guardian last May. “I am looking forward to teaching and to learning from the students, as well as to sharing my own experiences of working alongside governments and the United Nations.”
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Angelina Jolie visits NATO headquarters in Belgium to discuss prevention of sexual violence against women in warzones... as her tour of Europe continues
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- Published on Saturday, 03 February 2018 13:33
- Written by Daily mail
She is an acclaimed actress, humanitarian, advocate of world peace and UNHCR Special Envoy.And Angelina Jolie was seen visiting NATO headquarters in Brussels, Belgium to discuss ways to prevent sexual violence against women in areas of conflict on Wednesday.The Oscar-winning actress, 42, wore a caped black dress and matching heels for her meeting with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg. The mother of six flashed a smile as she shook hands with Jens during the photocall before she was treated to a tour of the military base.Angelina met with Jens in her role as co-founder of the Preventing Sexual Violence in Conflict Initiative. In December Angelina and Jens united for an op-ed in The Guardian, with the actress writing how the NATO alliance could be a role model and 'leading protector' of womens' rights, and ending gender-based violence. Jolie wrote: 'In our different roles we have seen how conflicts in which women’s bodies and rights are systematically abused last longer, cause deeper wounds and are much harder to resolve and overcome. Ending gender-based violence is therefore a vital issue of peace and security as well as of social justice.' The visit to NATO HQ was the latest stop on Angelina's tour of Europe, with the star seen meeting with France's First Lady Brigitte Macron on Tuesday.The meeting was to discuss her recent visit to Jordan and urge members of the UN Security Council to resolve the conflict in Syria.She later attended a beauty launch at the Guerlain headquarters at the end of the night.Earlier in the day, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees Special Envoy was seen taking a break from her charity work as she enjoyed a day of culture in the City of Light with her six children.Angelina shares her kids with ex Brad Pitt, who she announced she was splitting from in 2016.They share Shiloh and twins Vivienne and Knoxwhile Maddox, Pax and Zahara were adopted from Cambodia, Vietnam and Ethiopia respectively. The family trip to Paris comes after Angelina took daughters Shiloh and Zahara to a Zataari refugee camp in Jordan last week.The humanitarian said that her daughters 'asked to come' with her to meet with Syrians displaced from the country's on-going civil war which began nearly seven years ago, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.She said: 'They’ve spent time today speaking and playing with children their own age who have been forced from their homes, whose family members have been killed or have disappeared.'Who are struggling with trauma and illness, but who at the end of the day are just children, with the same hopes and rights as children in any other nation.' Angelina served as a Goodwill ambassador for the UN from 2001-2012.During her time working with the organisation, she has carried out almost 60 field missions and become an advocate on refugee and displacement issues. In 2012 she was appointed Special Envoy, which sees the working mother focus on crises that result in mass population displacements as well as represent the UN.
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Un règlement du conflit en Syrie est urgent, dit Angelina Jolie en Jordanie
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- Published on Monday, 29 January 2018 05:10
- Written by Orange (actu)
L'actrice Angelina Jolie est allée dimanche à la rencontre de réfugiés syriens en Jordanie, pressant les membres du Conseil de sécurité de l'ONU d'agir d'urgence pour régler le conflit en Syrie qui va bientôt entrer dans sa huitième année.Ambassadrice de bonne volonté du Haut commissariat des Nations unies pour les réfugiés (HCR), l'actrice américaine qui s'est rendue dans le camp de réfugiés de Zaatari a déclaré devant la presse: "C'est bouleversant de retourner en Jordanie et de constater le niveau de souffrance, de difficultés et de traumatisme dans lequel vivent les réfugiés syriens alors que le conflit entre dans sa huitième année".Situé dans le nord du royaume jordanien, le camp de Zaatari accueille quelque 80.000 réfugiés.Plus de 650.000 Syriens ayant fui la guerre dans leur pays sont enregistrés auprès du HCR en Jordanie, pays qui partage avec la Syrie quelque 370 kilomètres de frontière. Mais les autorités jordaniennes évaluent leur nombre à plus d'un million."La Jordanie, la Turquie, le Liban et l'Irak accueillent ensemble maintenant près de 5,5 millions de réfugiés syriens et constituent un exemple pour le monde" a souligné la star américaine affirmant toutefois qu'à "long terme, l'aide humanitaire n'est pas une solution"."Nous exhortons les membres du Conseil de sécurité à agir pour régler le conflit et à construire la paix en Syrie", a dit Angelina Jolie qui visite la Jordanie pour la cinquième fois.Expliquant que le HCR n'a pas suffisamment de fonds pour assurer pleinement sa mission pour les réfugiés syriens, elle a exhorté la communauté internationale à "faire plus" pour aider ces derniers et les pays qui les accueillent.Selon elle, seuls 50% des besoins du HCR pour les réfugiés syriens ont été assurés l'an dernier et jusqu'à présent, seuls 7% des fonds pour 2018 ont été obtenus.Déclenché en 2011 par la répression sanglante de manifestations pacifiques par le régime de Bachar al-Assad, la guerre en Syrie s'est complexifiée au fil des ans avec l'implication de pays étrangers et de groupes jihadistes, sur un territoire de plus en plus morcelé.La guerre a fait plus de 340.000 morts et des millions de déplacés et réfugiés.
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Angelina Jolie calls for long-term Syrian refugee solution
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- Published on Monday, 29 January 2018 05:13
- Written by SF Gate
Movie star Angelina Jolie visited a camp for Syrian refugees in Jordan on Sunday, calling for a political solution to Syria's long-running civil war and saying that "humanitarian aid is not a long-term solution."Children crowded around the U.S. actress as she spoke in a patch of muddy space between hundreds of rows of caravans in the desert camp of Zaatari, less than an hour's drive from the Syrian border.It was Jolie's fifth visit to Jordan."It is heartbreaking to return to Jordan and witness the levels of hardship and trauma among Syrian refugees as this war enters its eighth year," Jolie said after meeting refugee families and teenage girls in a U.N.-run community program."I'm very proud. You're very strong, all of you," Jolie, a special envoy for the U.N. refugee agency, told them.Nearly 5.5 million displaced Syrians are hosted by Jordan, Lebanon and other neighboring countries.Jolie said the hospitality of the overburdened host countries is "an example to the world at a time when solidarity with refugees is in short supply."She said the U.N. refugee agency received only half the requested funding for the Syria crisis last year and only 7 percent so far this year."Humanitarian aid is not a long-term solution. No one wants to get off aid more than a Syrian family," Jolie said."A viable political settlement is the only way to create the conditions for Syrians to be able to return to their homes, to end the human suffering and the strain on host countries," she added.Jordan hosts more than 650,000 registered Syrian refugees, according to the U.N. refugee agency. More than 78,000 live in Zaatari.
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