Angelina Jolie Planning to Launch Academic Center

Actress and humanitarian Angelina Jolie has unveiled plans to launch an academic center aimed at combating rape and sexual violence in war zones.

The star, a United Nations special envoy for refugees, teamed up with Britain’s First Secretary of State William Hague on Tuesday to launch the Center on Women, Peace and Security at the London School of Economics, where she and Hague hope students will learn about the participation of women in “conflict-related processes”.

Programs at the center will also be aimed at “enhancing accountability and ending impunity for rape and sexual violence in war”, in line with the aims of the Preventing Sexual Violence Initiative (PSVI), which the actress co-founded with Hague and officials at the London School of Economics in 2012.

Speaking at the press event, Jolie said, “If you were to ask me who I think this center is for, I picture someone who is not in this room today. 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.”

In a statement, Jolie adds: “I am excited at the thought of all the students in years to come who will study in this new Center. There is no stable future for a world in which crimes committed against women go unpunished. We need the next generation of educated youth with inquisitive minds and fresh energy, who are willing not only to sit in the classroom but to go out into the field and the courtrooms and make a decisive difference (sic).”

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