Angelina Jolie meeting displaced Iraqis who live in an abandoned school in Al Qosh. Source: AFP
ANGELINA Jolie has established Europe’s first academic centre to be focused on alleviating the hardships faced by women in conflict zones.
The centre on Women, Peace and Security is based at the London School of Economics and will aim to increase accountability, end impunity and aid in the prevention of sexual violence initiative (PSVI).
The Hollywood actress and director has been increasingly involved with humanitarian work and in April 2012 was appointed as a special envoy to the UN high commission for refugees.
Speaking at the announcement alongside the UK’s first secretary of state, William Hague, Jolie said, “I am excited at the thought of all the students in years to come who will study in this new centre. There is no stable future for a world in which crimes committed against women go unpunished.”
A statement that was echoed by secretary Hague who conceded that “crimes against women have been accorded a lesser priority throughout history.”
From 2016 the Centre will provide a postgraduate teaching program in Women, Peace and Security, leading to a post graduate degree. Source: Getty Images
Jolie has recently returned from Northern Iraq where she visited with some of the millions of displaced people that have fled from the Islamic State regime.
The Guardian UK has reported that during her trip she met a 13-year-old girl who was captured by IS and taken as a sex slave. According to the news site, Jolie told those at the opening that it is girls like her that the centre has been created to help.
The director of the London School of Economic, Professor Craig Calhoun said the centre “is a remarkable opportunity for us to bring together academic and policy experts and those in the front line of tackling violence against women. I am delighted to have worked with William Hague and Angelina Jolie Pitt in bringing this project together, and I am very excited about the possibilities it brings.”
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