Angelina Jolie addresses Hollywood sexual abuse in powerful UN speech - Independent

Angelina Jolie addresses Hollywood sexual abuse in powerful UN speech

The actor's keynote speech for the U.N. Peacekeeping Defense Ministerial Conference called on global leaders to take better action against sexual violence

Clarisse Loughrey

Angelina Jolie has made a powerful, sweeping call to combat sexual violence around the world.

"Sexual violence is everywhere - in the industry where I work, in business, in universities, in politics, in the military, and across the world," she said during her keynote address to the U.N. Peacekeeping Defense Ministerial Conference in Vancouver on Wednesday.

The actor is one of many women who came forward with accusations against Harvey Weinstein. She alleged to The New York Times that she had a bad experience with the producer in her youth, during the release of Playing by Heart in the late 1990s. She said Weinstein made unwanted advances on her in a hotel room, which she rejected.

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As a result, she "chose never to work with him again and warn others when they did," she said in an e-mail to the Times. "This behaviour towards women in any field, any country is unacceptable."

A representative for Weinstein said in a statement, "Any allegations of non-consensual sex are unequivocally denied by Mr. Weinstein. Mr. Weinstein has further confirmed that there were never any acts of retaliation against any women for refusing his advances."

"All too often, these kinds of crimes against women are laughed off, depicted as a minor offence by someone who cannot control themselves, as an illness, or as some kind of exaggerated sexual need," Jolie stated in her keynote speech. "But a man who mistreats women is not oversexed. He is abusive."

Jolie has dedicated herself to the fight to end sexual violence, acting as a Special Envoy of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. Her speech called for sexual violence to be recognised around the world as a weapon and "a critical obstacle to achieving women's equality and our full human rights."

"It is cheaper than a bullet, and it has lasting consequences that unfold with sickening predictability that make it so cruelly effective," she continued. "This is rape and assault designed to torture, to terrorize, to force people to flee, and to humiliate them."

She criticised global leaders for failing to take decisive action; for seeing sexual violence against women as an inevitable part of conflict, instead of an issue that should be addressed when it comes to peace negotiations and punishments.

"Even if we accept that sexual violence has nothing to do with sex, that it is a crime, and that it is used as a weapon, many people still believe that it is simply not possible to do anything about it," she said. "It is hard, but it is not impossible. We have the laws, the institutions, and the expertise in gathering evidence. We are able to identify perpetrators. What is missing is the political will."