Hague, Jolie to chair summit on rape

British Foreign Secretary William Hague and Hollywood screen idol Angelina Jolie are joining forces to co-host a high-profile summit focused on ending rape as a weapon of war.

Hague pledged on Tuesday that the four-day London gathering in June would "be a summit like no other" bringing together foreign ministers from 140 countries as he was awarded the 2014 Hillary Clinton prize for Women, Peace and Security.

It was Jolie's film In the Land of Blood and Honey which opened his eyes to the extent of sexual violence in conflict zones, he told the award ceremony at the prestigious Georgetown University in Washington.

"Sexual violence is often one of the first things that happens as soon as conflict or instability take hold," Hague said.

"Yet it is usually the last thing to be taken into account by those ending wars or rebuilding nations," he added, stressing that "women bear the worst of the burden of war".

"We must remove rape and sexual violence from the world's arsenal of cruelty."

The June 10-13 meeting would be the largest gathering ever to focus on sexual violence in conflict, and would also bring together armed forces, police units and legal experts, Hague explained.

It would ask countries "to write action against sexual violence into their military training and doctrine and their peace-keeping missions overseas," as well as launch a new international protocol on investigating such crimes.

"But we are going to be even more ambitious than that. We are setting out to change the whole global attitude to these crimes, as well changing bureaucracies," Hague said.

The hope was to create "so much momentum that we begin to shatter the culture of impunity", he added.

Jolie's 2011 film, which marked her directorial debut, is a love story told against the backdrop of the Bosnian war two decades ago, when according to Hague some 50,000 women were raped. Virtually none of them has received justice, the British minister said.