Photo:Screenshot/CBC News
While calling for action to combat sexual violence against women in societies around the world, Angelina Jolie has said almost every Rohingya woman refugee is a victim of assault meant to terrorize the community into fleeing Myanmar.
She highlighted the plight of Rohingya girls and women in a speech to 2017 United Nations Peacekeeping Defense Ministerial conference in Vancouver, Canada.
Jolie, who is also Special Envoy of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, noted that according to the UN, “almost every female Rohingya refugee in the camps in Bangladesh is either a survivor of sexual violence or a witness to multiple incidences of sexual assault, rape or gang‑rape.”
She said half of the patients the MSF has treated for rape are under the age of 18, and one was just years old.
“This is rape and assault designed to torture, to terrorize, and to force people to flee.
“It has nothing to do with sex. It has everything to do with the abuse of power. It is criminal behavior.”
The United Nations has called Myanmar government forces’ violence against the Rohingya minority Muslim community as a textbook example of ethnic cleansing. Hundreds of thousands of Rohingyas have taken refuge in neighboring Bangladesh, and their excruciating stories of violence have drawn widespread condemnations.
In her speech, Jolie questioned the efficacy of numerous laws and resolutions that aim at stopping sexual attacks against women.
“And it has been 17 years since UN Security Council Resolution 1325 called for an end to the exclusion of women from peace negotiations, for special protection for women and girls against sexual violence, and for an end to impunity.
“We have to ask, how is it, after all these years, all these laws and resolutions and all the horrors endured, women still have to ask for this most basic of all entitlements: the right to a life free from violence?”
Jolie, who is among several American women who have alleged sexual mistreatment from former Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein, said the issue of gender-based violence is the issue of social justice in societies around the world. Weinstein’s lawyer has denied allegations of sexual misconduct.
“Sexual violence is everywhere – in the industry where I work, in business, in universities, in politics, in the military, and across the world. It affects men as well as women.
“However it is recognized by the UN one of the prime reasons why women remain in a subordinate position in relation to men in most parts of the world, and as a critical obstacle to achieving women’s equality and our full human rights.
“Ending gender-based violence is therefore a vital issue of social justice in all nations. And confronting its use in its most extreme form, as a weapon of war, is essential to future peace and security,” she said, according to a text of her speech.
