Angelina Jolie Urges Politicians To Rethink Refugee Rules 10/20/08

Angelina Jolie has begged top U.S. politicians to change the existing practice on sending refugees back home after meeting many of the desperate people who fear for their lives as they get on a plane.

The charity Jolie and partner Brad Pitt formed to highlight the plight of the world's refugees sponsored a symposium on international law and justice at the Council on Foreign Relations headquarters in New York over the weekend. And the highlight came as Jolie opened the debates on Friday with her own experiences.

She told foreign policy experts, "I've seen refugees return to live among the same people who attacked them. They are returning to the same lawlessness that sent them running in the first place. "I've seen aid workers tear up as they put ladies on a bus and say, 'I don't know what we're sending them back to."

"No mother who had her children killed in front of her, no young girl sold into slavery, no boy kidnapped and forced to be a child soldier and no young girl like the three-year-old I met in Sierra Leone, who had her limbs cut off, should be expected to simply forget."