Angelina Jolie Visits Congo To Discuss The Warzone Rape Crisis

The actress joined William Hague on a visit to a refugee camp as part of a campaign to stop rape being used as a weapon of war

Angelina Jolie has joined William Hague on a visit to the Democratic Republic of Congo on a mission to end the use of rape as a weapon in warzones.

The Hollywood actress and the British Foreign Secretary are in the country to speak to survivors of sexual violence and meet political leaders.

Angelina, who is a a special envoy for the UN refugee agency, called for the end to 'impunity' for those who carry out rape in warzones across the globe.

She said: 'What we're here to do is try to scale it up and make this a world wide focus and it's due time, it's been going on every war, every crisis and it's often an afterthought and it's due time to end this and put an end to impunity and they deserve it.'

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Mr Hague added that he intends to raise the problem at the annual G8 meeting of foreign ministers in London in April.

'Sexual violence in conflict has to be resolved if conflicts are to be resolved because when rape is used as a weapon of war,' he said. 'It makes communities harder, to bring together and much harder for people to get on with their lives afterwards.'

The pair want to raise awareness of the rape problem on an international level and spur governments on to action. 

In tandem with this the UK government has already pledged £1m to help UN efforts to secure justice for victims. And the first step, according to Angelina Jolie, is to gather evidence of rape so that rapists can be tried in the future. To do this a 70-strong team of police, lawyers, psychologists, doctors and forensic experts has been put together.

Mr Hague was inspired to join forces with Angelinaafter seeing her film In the Land of Blood and Honey, which depicted the horrific rapes that took place during the war in Bosnia. 

When it comes to rape in warzones around the world the statistics are apalling with 50,000 raped in Bosnia, 64,000 in Sierra Leone, 200,000 in Congo, 400,000 in Rwanda.

Keep up the good work, Angelina.

Watch Angelina Jolie and William Hague talking about their anti-rape campaign below:

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