The actor opens up about why her divorce from Brad Pitt is a human rights issue, escaping Harvey Weinstein and what young activists have taught her

‘People try to stop us speaking up’ – Jolie meets inspirational young campaigners

Angelina Jolie sits at a desk, back straight as a rule and rather regal. Her features are cartoonishly beautiful – straight black hair, vertiginous cheekbones, huge blue eyes and lips like a plumped red sofa. She is talking on Zoom to four young activists. It is a horribly apt day to be discussing human rights – the Taliban has just captured Ghazni city on its approach to Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan.

If this were a movie, you might suspect Jolie was playing a divine leader addressing the fortunate few. Yet it soon becomes apparent that things aren’t quite as they seem. The actor and film director is the one in awe, not the activists. The young people talk about the work they have done raising awareness of the carnage in Syria, the environmental crisis, trans rights and food poverty. Jolie hangs on their every word. She tells them they have inspired her children who follow their work, warns them against burnout, apologises for the failings of her generation and says how honoured she is to meet them.

The next evening it is just Jolie and me Zooming. In the background I can hear kids playing. Our conversation is frequently interrupted by the ferocious roar of her rottweiler Dusty, who appears to believe he is a lion. It’s been an even more depressing day for human rights – the Taliban has entered Kabul and toppled the Afghanistan government. Jolie says the only thing giving her hope is the young people we met last night. “They speak about these issues with more urgency and awareness of what is morally right and decent than any politician, any diplomat, any NGOs I’ve worked with.”

She says she can’t stop thinking about Muhammad Najem, a 19-year-old who literally shouted from the rooftops about the Syrian regime’s siege of his home village, Eastern Ghouta. After his father was killed four years ago in an airstrike on the mosque where he was praying, Muhammad and his brother would wait for the daily bombing to stop, film the carnage from their roof and document the suffering of survivors. He and his family soon became government targets, and fled to Turkey from where he spoke to us. It wasn’t just his bravery that was notable; it was the warmth of his smile, his zest for life, despite all he has seen. Since we last spoke, Jolie has Zoomed again with Muhammad and a girl who is campaigning against period poverty. “His relationship to that teenage girl and her activism was more in tune than almost any man I’ve met,” Jolie says. We agree that cloning Muhammad may be the answer to world peace. “He is that evolved man!” Jolie says.

“Grrrrrrrrr!” Dusty roars, apparently in agreement.

I had an experience in the States with my own children and I thought… well, human rights, children’s rights
Jolie has spent 20 years campaigning for human rights, first as a goodwill ambᴀssador and then special envoy for the UN high commissioner for refugees. She has carried out more than 60 field missions, invariably with notepad and pen in hand, bearing witness to people displaced by war and persecution in countries such as Syria, Sierra Leone, Iraq and Afghanistan.

Now Jolie, 46, has written a book with child rights lawyer Geraldine Van Bueren QC and Amnesty International, called Know Your Rights, a guide for young people named after the Clash song whose тιтle is also tattooed on Jolie’s back. The book lays out all the rights children have under the UN convention on the rights of the child, ratified by 196 countries, explains how to claim them and offers advice from young people who have done. Know Your Rights tackles all the big issues in a chatty, accessible way – from the rights to life, dignity, health, equality and non-discrimination, criminal justice, a safe place, freedom of thought and expression, privacy, peaceful protest, play and education, to the right to protections from harm and armed violence.