Award-winning actress Angelina Jolie has warned that Islamic State militants are using sexual violence against women "in a way we've never seen before" and called for stronger action against the terrorist group.
Speaking on Tuesday, Jolie, a special envoy of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and active campaigner against the use of sexual violence in conflict, told a British parliamentary committee that ISIS is using rape as a "policy".
"The most aggressive terrorist group in the world today knows what we know; knows that it is a very effective weapon and [is] using it as a centerpoint of their terror and their way of destroying communities and families and attacking, destroying and dehumanizing," Jolie said, the New York Post reports.
She added, "This is what is beyond something we have seen before. This is actually put into their policy. They are saying: 'we should do this, this is the right way to build a society, so we tell you to rape.'"
The report notes that the popular actress appeared at the House of Lords committee alongside former foreign secretary William Hague to discuss their Preventing Sexual Violence Initiative, which they launched three years ago.
As reported by the Gospel Herald, thousands of women and young girls, many of them from Christian and Yazidi communities, have been abducted, raped and sold into sexual slavery by Islamic State over the past year.
Large swaths of Iraq and Syria are currently under the control of the terrorist group, which has viciously purged the region of those who do not adhere to their particular brand of Islam. ISIS fighters regard themselves as entitled to use captured women as sex slaves, viewing them as "spoils of war."
"When a child or a woman is taken captive, they become slaves by the fact of capture, and the woman"s previous marriage is immediately annulled," explains Christian author and Jihad Watch director Robert Spencer.
"[However] Islam avoids the appearance of impropriety, declaring that the taking of these sex slaves does not constitute adultery if the women are already married, for their marriages are ended at the moment of their capture," he continues.
A sobering report released last November reveals that not only are the militants forcefully marrying the captured women, they are also selling girls as young as one years old into sex slavery to fund their army.
The document, issued by ISIS, shows a full list of prices as well as some basic rules for who was permitted to buy the girls and when. It also claims that anyone violating the price controls will be killed.
In its English propaganda publication, "Dabiq," ISIS earlier sought to justify its treatment of females, saying it is "Islamic" to capture and forcibly make "infidel" women sexual slaves.
"Before Shaytan [Satan] reveals his doubts to the weak-minded and weak hearted, one should remember that enslaving the families of the kuffar [infidels] and taking their women as concubines is a firmly established aspect of the Shari'ah that if one were to deny or mock, he would be denying or mocking the verses of the Qur'an and the narration of the Prophet ... and thereby apostatizing from Islam," the publication read.
In continuing her comments, Jolie recalled meeting a 13-year-old Iraqi girl who had, along with her friends, been repeatedly raped.
"They told me that what was even worse than the physical violence was that they then had to stand in rooms and watch their friends be sold and to hear about what they were worth," she said. "Were they worth $40? $50? What was their value?... It made her question what she was worth."
She added,"The most important thing is to understand what it's not: it's not sexual, it's a violent, brutal, terrorizing weapon and it is used unfortunately, everywhere."
Jolie explained that she had felt very limited "as an artist" and highlighted the need for more political commitment.
"For all of that goodwill, it's wonderful, but laws need to change; policies need to change; governments and leaderships need to come together and that will make the real change," she said.
