Angelina Jolie Opens Rape Centre In London

10 FEBRUARY 2015

ANGELINA JOLIE was in London today to open a rape study centre at the London School of Economics. The pioneering research unit – Europe’s first academic centre to combat the brutality faced by women in warzones – will attempt to understand and eradicate war rape.

“If you were to ask me who I think this centre is for, I picture someone who is not in this room today,” Jolie said. “I think of a girl I met in Iraq three weeks ago. She is 13 years old, but instead of going to school, she sits on the floor in a makeshift tent.”  Captured by ISIS and repeatedly raped, the vulnerable child “may never be able to complete her education, or get married or have a family, because in her society victims of rape are shunned, and considered shameful,” Jolie described, The Guardian reports. “To my mind, what we have begun today at LSE is for that Iraqi girl and others like her.”

Jolie was joined at the announcement by former UK foreign secretary William Hague, with whom she has previously worked on an initiative addressing the prevalence of  sexual violence in conflict.

“Crimes against women have been accorded a lesser priority throughout history,” Hague added. “Sexual violence in conflict involves the deliberate targeting of women and children and men, in ways that often simply defy the power of description… Despite this, we always have to strive to do something else as the United Kingdom, and that is to try to improve the condition of humanity… We can overcome that feeling that it’s a hopeless matter, that you can never change it.”

Jolie – who called for “the empowerment of women to be the highest priority for the finest minds, in the best academic institutions” – revealed that the centre will gather key thinkers, activists, policymakers and academics, tasking them with making progress on issues including the prosecution of warzone rapists and women’s engagement in politics. The centre will be hosted in the LSE’s new Institute of Global Affairs, which will offer an MSc program in women, peace and security from 2016.

Via British Vogue and Lauren Milligan

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