Hollywood actress Angelina Jolie has teamed up with Britain’s Foreign Secretary William Hague for a trip to the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) to highlight the use of rape as a weapon of war and to raise awareness of the issue on an international level.

The two will visit a rescue camp for women north-west of Goma to raise awareness about warzone rape.

“This visit is about hearing first hand from people who have endured rape and sexual violence during the conflict in the eastern DRC. We want justice for the victims and we want to know how the world can protect thousands of women, men and children at risk of rape in many other conflict zones. We want to persuade governments around the world to give this issue the attention it deserves,” said Jolie.

“Unless the world acts, we will always be reacting to atrocities, treating survivors rather than preventing rape in the first place,” added Jolie.

Hague hopes to present his findings to the forthcoming Group of Eight summit in London.

He is calling on the G8 leaders to agree that rape and sexual violence constitute breaches of the Geneva Conventions governing warfare.

“More often than not the international community looks away, the perpetrators of these brutal crimes walk free and the cycle of injustice and conflict is repeated,” he said.

“It is time for real, meaningful action by the governments of the world to say that the use of rape as a weapon of war is unacceptable, to bring perpetrators to justice and to lift the stigma from survivors. This is my personal priority for the meeting of G8 foreign ministers,” he added.

As a UNHCR Special Envoy, Jolie has fought for the rights of refugees worldwide for over a decade.

A 2011 film by the 37-year-old actress, “In the Land of Blood and Honey,” depicts the experiences of victims in the infamous rape camps set up during the ethnic cleansing in Bosnia-Herzegovina.

(This video was shot and edited by Steve Hebert for ProPublica and produced by Steve Hebert for ProPublica and Krista Kjellman Schmidt, ProPublica)

By Peter Sleeth, Special to ProPublica and Hal Bernton, The Seattle Times

WELLSVILLE, Kan. -- The day after Jim Butler learned his son had died in Iraq in 2003, a U.S. Army casualty officer showed up at the family's small ranch to explain what happened.

Your son was hit by a rocket-propelled grenade in the city of As Samawah, the officer said. But he had no other details to offer, nothing about how the fighting came about or what Sgt. Jacob Butler was doing when he was killed. For the grieving father, it wasn't enough. The question of how Jake died gripped him in the days after, in part because he'd made an unusual promise before his son left: If you are killed, I will go and stand where you fell.

So Butler made a simple request to the Army for Jake's casualty report. Rules require one when soldiers are killed in a war zone. Unit commanders are supposed to create and maintain them, along with numerous other field records.

"They said, 'We'll have to see,'" Butler recalled, "because one should have been made."

Nine years later, Butler is still waiting for a report he may never get. As an investigation by ProPublica and The Seattle Times revealed, the Army has lost or failed to keep that document and many other field records from Iraq and Afghanistan.

The 1st Armored Division Jacob Butler's unit is among those lacking many of its records. Documents and interviews show that dozens of units are in similar shape, and that U.S. Central Command in Iraq also lost records related to joint-service operations in the theater.

History is cheated when front-line records are lost. And without them, veterans can face delays securing benefits for combat-related disabilities.

But missing records can have another after effect, creating uncertainty and confusion as survivors struggle with the heartbreak of loss.

Family members of soldiers who die in war are entitled to casualty reports if they request them. That fact did not help Jim Butler. He pressed the Army repeatedly in the months after Jake's death for his casualty report, but got a series of conflicting and perplexing responses instead.

"I felt hurt because I felt they should be truthful," Butler said of the Army. "Is that too much to ask?

"If it turned out Jake was killed by friendly fire, it would hurt, but I could handle it," he said. "If he died by suicide, it would hurt, but I could handle it."

The truth turned out to be far different, but Butler had to dig out the story himself. And he never saw the most complete official account of Jake's death until a reporter provided it.

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