Angelina Jolie's campaign

Show-biz and international politics are not always comfortable bedfellows. A big name can be effective in charity work but stars who take on serious campaigns are not always successful. Michael Douglas was a UN spokesman on disarmament for a time but I suspect that he made very little impact on the issue. As for Madonna, perhaps comment is better withheld. Against that background it is easy to see that Angelina Jolie has taken on a major task so far ignored. This week in London she has enlisted the help of the G8 foreign ministers in her campaign to have the use of rape as a weapon of war taken seriously, prosecuted and outlawed. Its a big order -- 250'000 women have been raped in the Democratic Republic of Congo yet no action has been taken against those responsible. She has the support of Britain's William Hague and the issue will be on the agenda of the main G8 summit chaired by the UK in Northern Ireland later this year.

The G8 nations have pledged 23 million pounds towards action on her campaign but she did not minimise the size of a problem that has lacked international political will as she called for the “end of impunity” for offenders. William Hague, who recently visited the Congo and Rwanda and met women's groups there with Jolie, called rape “the slave trade of our times”.