Germany, with the support of actor and activist Angelina Jolie, has forwarded a UN Security Council resolution addressing rape in conflicts — a subject central to one of Germany's best-known wartime novels.
As Heiko Maas works with Angelina Jolie to pass a UN resolution on sexual violence against women in conflict regions, we look at other actors who are active in social engagement and the causes dear to their hearts.
Image: imago images/ Photothek/T. Imo
Against sexual violence in conflict: Angelina Jolie and Heiko Maas
Germany assumed the chairmanship of the UN Security Council for the first time for the month of April. Germany's Foreign Minister, Heiko Maas, is using this time to address the issue of sexual violence in armed conflicts. Together with actor Angelina Jolie, Maas is proposing a UN resolution calling for perpetrators to be held more accountable in addition to a corresponding catalogue of measures.
Image: imago images/ Photothek/T. Imo
Solidarity with refugees: Ben Stiller
Like Jolie, actor Ben Stiller has also been supporting the UNHCR for years. In March 2019, he traveled to Guatemala as a symbol of solidarity because he was outraged by the US policy of separating refugee children from their parents at the border to Mexico. He is calling for more openness towards refugees. In March, he was honored for his commitment by the UN Women for Peace Association.
Amal Clooney, a human rights lawyer, is also on the list of speakers for the UN Security Council debate on sexual violence in crisis areas. She is married to another politically active actor, George Clooney, who most recently has called for a boycott of hotels belonging to the Sultan of Brunei after the Sultanate had issued a death sentence for homosexuals.
Image: picture-alliance/empics/G. Fuller
#HeforShe and women's rights: Emma Watson
The socially and politically engaged actor Emma Watson fights for women's rights. Above she can be seen in Paris with members of the advisory board for equal rights for men and women. Already in her youth, playing the role of clever Hermione in the Harry Potter movies, Watson saw herself as a "kind of feminist." Now she is a special ambassador for girls' education for the organization, UN Women.
Since October 2017, the fight against sexual harassment has become a frontline global issue via the #MeToo movement. The issue has especially impacted the film industry. Actor Emma Thompson, for example, in February canceled her speaking role in the animated film "Luck" after director and producer John Lasseter was accused of "inappropriately touching" women.
Image: picture-alliance/empics/J. Brady
Against right-wing extremism and anti-Semitism: Iris Berben
Iris Berben is one of the best-known actors in Germany and has been president of the German Film Academy since 2010. In the image above, Berben has just received the Max Ophüls Film Festival's Honorary Award for her service to young German film talents. Politically, she promotes tolerance and diversity and is patron of the "Show Your Face" initiative, which campaigns against right wing extremism.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/O. Dietze
A tireless AIDS campaigner: Elizabeth Taylor
Elizabeth Taylor was one of the first people to become politically involved in the fight against AIDS at a time when the US government refused to recognize it as a disease. Taylor's film partner Rock Hudson from "Giant" (1956) had fallen ill with AIDS and died in 1985. In 1991, Taylor set up her own AIDS foundation to draw attention to the disease and financially support AIDS organizations.
Image: picture-alliance/AP/P. Djong
Climate campaigner: Leonardo di Caprio
While many stars boast of their commitment to social and political causes, sometimes their altruism is questioned. Climate change campaigner Leonardo di Caprio is typically derided by some in the media for his carbon-intensive lifestyle. But as a UN peace ambassador, the actor has established his own climate protection foundation, and co-produced a documentary film on climate change.
Image: Getty Images/J. Watson
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In an op-ed published in The Washington Post Monday, German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas and actor and activist Angelina Jolie, wrote that the intention of opening the subject up for debate was to address the impunity for perpetrators. The resolution, for which there will be a high-level debate Tuesday featuring Nobel Peace Prize winners Denis Mukwege and Nadia Murad, aims for a three-pronged approach to addressing the crimes: "Urging targeted sanctions on those who perpetrate and direct violence, anchoring the topic in an informal working group and laying out an inclusive, survivor-centered approach."
The subject has been at the center of a debate in Germany that has gone on for several decades. Originally published in 1959, the book A Woman in Berlin detailed the rape of German women in the closing days of World War II and its aftermath.
"And this mass rape is something we are overcoming collectively as well. All the women help each other, by speaking about it, airing their pain and allowing others to air theirs and spit out what they've suffered," the anonymous diarist and author wrote in an entry dated May 8, 1945.
Denis Mukwege and Nadia Murad received the 2018 Nobel Peace Prize for their work with survivors of sexual violenceImage: NTB Scanpix/Haakon Mosvold Larsen/Reuters
After negative publicity, the book went out of print and wasn't released again until after the author's death in 2003. This time, however, A Woman in Berlin landed on the bestseller list and, having been made into an award-winning film in 2008, reopened public dialogue on what had long been a taboo issue within Germany.
Actor and activist Angelina Jolie has long been advocating for victims of rape and other forms of sexual violence in war zones. She directed the movie, In the Land of Blood and Honey, released in 2011, a fictionalized account of the use of rape as a weapon of war during the war in Yugoslavia. In 2012, she acted as Special Envoy of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees and used her time in the role to draw attention to the cause.
Jolie addressed sexual violence against women in her movie, "In the Land of Blood and Honey"Image: AP
"In many conflicts, sexual violence is used as a tactic of war, intended to hurt not only a single individual, but their family, their community, their ethnic group. Today this has almost become a rule rather than an exception, and we all must work together to combat the impunity and ensure justice for the victims," she said at a conference addressing the issue.
Jolie went on to co-found thePreventing Sexual Violence in Conflict Initiative, which claims as its mission that it "aims to raise awareness of the extent of sexual violence against women, men, girls and boys in situations of armed conflict and rally global action to end it," in 2014 and remains an active supporter of programs and government initiatives addressing the issue. Earlier this year, she traveled to Cox's Bazaar in Bangladesh to meet with Rohingya refugee survivors of sexual violence.
