Yahoo Lifestyle Angelina Jolie Vying To End Wartime Rape
United Nations Goodwill Ambassador Angelina Jolie is joining forces with U.K. officials this week in a bid to help stop wartime rape.
The philanthropic actress and current marie claire covergirl will fly into London to join the Global Summit to End Sexual Violence in Conflict this week, which is the first international conference set up to combat sexual crimes.
"Rape is used as a tool of war because it is so destructive and because the perpetrators get away with it," Jolie said in March at a Bosnia conference. "It often involves gang-rape, torture, and mutilation. It is carried out in the presence of the [victim's] relatives, in order to break families apart."
Jolie and British Foreign Secretary William Hague will be joined by 150 officials at the summit, which will call "for all soldiers and peacekeepers to be trained to understand and prevent war-zone sexual violence."
Hague also stated that countries will be asked to update their legislature on rape and sexual violence if they do not already align with international law.
According to NBC, the U.N. estimates that more than 60,000 women were raped during Sierra Leone's civil war between 1991-2002, more than 40,000 in Liberia between 1989-2003, between 100,000 and 250,000 in Rwanda in 1994, and at least 200,000 in the Democratic Republic of the Congo since 1998.
Gita Sahgal, of Amnesty International, told the BBC News it was a mistake to think such assaults were primarily about the age-old "spoils of war", or sexual gratification.
"Rape is often used in ethnic conflicts as a way for attackers to perpetuate their social control and redraw ethnic boundaries," she said.
"Women are seen as the reproducers and carers of the community. Therefore if one group wants to control another they often do it by impregnating women of the other community because they see it as a way of destroying the opposing community."
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