Zahara Jolie-Pitt Joins Mom Angelina Jolie In D.C. For A Special Cause

While Angelina Jolie is best known as an Academy Award-winning actress, her role as an advocate is equally noteworthy. She's spent the past 20 years fighting for human rights and was appointed as a Special Envoy for The UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) in April 2012. That's not all; she has carried out almost 60 field missions, worked with 27 organizations around the world, and visited more than 30 countries as a goodwill ambassador (via India Times). 

"I was quite anti-politics when I was young," she told Elle. "I started working on human-rights issues and meeting refugees and survivors mostly because I wanted to learn. I also had this romantic idea that I would get my boots on and be a humanitarian. But at a certain point, you realize that's not enough." In recent years, Jolie's made her advocacy a family affair and allowed her children — Maddox, Pax, Zahara, Shiloh, Vivenne, and Knox — to be involved. 

The "Eternals" star seems to believe it is especially important for her daughters to know they can make a difference. "I tell my daughters, 'What sets you apart is what you are willing to do for others. Anyone can put on a dress and makeup. It's your mind that will define you,'" Jolie explained. "'Find out who you are, what you think, and what you stand for. And fight for others to have those same freedoms. A life of service is worth living.'"

Zahara clearly took that message to heart to heart.

Angelina Jolie encourages her children to live a life of service. So it should come as no surprise that her daughter, Zahara Jolie-Pitt, joined her in Washington D.C. in December 2021 to meet with Texas representative Sheila Jackson Lee and Alaska senator Lisa Murkowski. Along with groups like the National Indigenous Women's Resource Center, they encouraged the renewal of the 1994 Violence Against Women Act (via W Magazine). 

Angelina and Zahara wanted the legislation to include protections for indigenous women, women of color, children, and people who live in rural America. "We need reforms including judicial training, trauma-informed court processes that minimize the risk of harm to children, grant programs for technology to detect bruising across all skin tones and create non-biased forensic evidence collection, and protections for the most vulnerable," Jolie wrote on Instagram.

Zahara was also with her mother in February 2022 when members of the Senate introduced the Violence Against Women Reauthorization Act. "I'm also glad to share in the advocacy with Zahara — and for her presence to calm my nerves before today's press conference," Angelina posted on Instagram.