Hollywood actress Angelina Jolie warns of rape tactics used by the Islamic State

Angelina Jolie warned a British Parliamentary Committee on Tuesday that Islamic State has been using rape as a policy in waging terror across the globe, pointing out the need for greater action against the military organisation. The Hollywood star presented evidence before the committee, along with former British Foreign Secretary William Hague.

"The most aggressive terrorist group in the world today [is] using [rape] as a centre point of their terror and their way of destroying communities and families," she told the committee.

Jolie is a special envoy of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and, like Hague, an active campaigner against the use of sexual violence in conflict. According to the reports of the United Nations and various rights groups, thousands of women and girls have been subjected to sexual slavery after getting abducted by the members of the Islamic State.

Jolie narrated the accounts of a 13-year-old girl she met at a war zone. The girl had been raped repeatedly along with her friends and then sold for 26 pounds sterling (AU$40).

"This is beyond something we have seen before," Jolie said. "They are saying: ‘You should do this, this is the way to build a society, we ask you to rape.’ We really have to have a very strong response at this time to this particular group."

According to Baroness Arminka Helic, a former adviser to Hague who was brought up in Bosnia, sexual violence is often regarded as a way of “ethnic cleansing.” As the Irish Examiner reported, Jolie has also noted that the political attention to the issue has been helping to do away with the stigma and allowing the victims to emerge from the shadows.

Hague said that the international community should highlight the tactics used by the Islamic State in its counter narrative. “This is a key part of the strategy of preventing sexual violence going forward now,” the Irish Examiner quoted Hague as saying.

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