ANGELINA JOLIE EXCLUSIVE FROM HAITI - INTERVIEW ON CNN'S AMANPOUR In a global exclusive interview, CNN's Christiane Amanpour interviews actress and UNHCR Goodwill Ambassador Angelina Jolie from Haiti on her reaction to what she has seen, her hope for the future of Haiti and how she will personally work to help the Haitian people. The full interview will air Sunday's night on CNN International at 8pm GMT and repeated Saturday at 2pm GMT and Sunday at 8pm GMT.A transcript of the interview was made available to The Egyptian Gazette Online: Welcome to the programme from Port-au-Prince, Angelina. JOLIE: Thank you very much. AMANPOUR: So you've been there for a couple of days. What have you noticed that's really struck you as an emergency and what needs to be taken care of right now? JOLIE: Well, I think the thing that maybe -- because we follow the news, we follow of the dramatic stories, but I think when you really get here, it is as dramatic if not more dramatic than you'd imagine on the scale and the complexity. Certainly, it absolutely the most complex post-disaster situation I think anybody -- government, the U.N. -- has every faced. But what is being done is extraordinary, and the Haitian people are so dignified. They're calm, they're helping themselves. They inspire me. I see many children with amputations who are smiling and strong and talking about their future. You realise that these people have suffered so much for so long that, in fact, they are so resilient. It's almost sad how used to struggling they are. AMANPOUR: Angelina -- right. Tell me what's motivating your visit at this time. What do you want to achieve at this time? JOLIE: Well, there are a few different things. One -- I wanted to understand -- I worked with UNHCR for a while, and they handle refugees but they also handle internally displaced people of about 10 million internally displaced. So I was very curious as to how they are going to help to organise all of the people. And, you know, this situation, the more I looked into it, and I know a lot of the people watching the news, we realised that even before the earthquake, three-quarters of the population had no education, this country had no primary school education. There was no civil registry, meaning no birth certificates, no land certificates, no death certificates. So how exactly is everybody going to start to organise these people and even register them is a new challenge that everybody's facing. AMANPOUR: I mean, you mentioned two big issues -- the issue of children and protection and the issue of the internally displaced and the need for shelter. Look, you know that because you've seen it now with your own eyes, that there are tens if not hundreds of thousands of people living out on the streets in these tent cities that we saw when we were there. They need major shelter. They need major tents. UNHCR is really good at that. Is there a way that you can help with your presence, motivate the arrival of tents, for instance? JOLIE: Absolutely, I have been speaking with UNHCR, I've been speaking with all the U.N. agencies and everybody is trying to race to kind of get this done in time. But I've also spoken with people who are talking about shelters that have to be properly -- they have to get the proper certifications to withstand certain weather. AMANPOUR: Right. Can I ask you about the children? JOLIE: Absolutely. AMANPOUR: Now the UN, UNHCR, has provided us with some of the video of your visit, including to SOS, a child protection organisation. Let me ask you because children are very much in the news. And before I went there, the head of UNICEF alerted us on this programme, to be aware of trafficking, to be aware of hasty adoptions. The prime minister told me a couple of weeks ago and really made a dramatic statement that already children were being trafficked and even organs were being trafficked. What do you think needs to happen for these children to protect them even from people who might think they're doing their best for them by trying to take them out? JOLIE: Well, I think we have to -- we have to enforce the law and work with the government. I know there's a new child protection cluster that's formed that's doing everything they can to kind of coordinate. They're talking a lot about reunification. I talked to ICRC about this reunification programme, because that's the most important thing, to try to track everybody. But as we said, it's very difficult without birth registrations. And for myself, as somebody who is an adoptive parent, I understand the urge to assist in that way, but now is not the time. An emergency is not the time for new adoptions anyway. I'm personally going to assist in country organisations like SOS that, in fact, do raise orphans in country with widows. It's an extraordinary programme and they do it -- and they raise them for life. And it's one of the programmes that's in 134 countries and it should be scaled up. It's one of the best ways to help a child without removing a child from its home country. So the more we can scale up in country, the better. AMANPOUR: Look, you -- you raised the prospect of yourself as an adoptive parent. Obviously, there's been a lot of speculation as to whether you will adopt form Haiti. Obviously, you're saying, not now, but will you? Is that something that you're looking at? JOLIE: I'm always open to children around the world. We're that kind of a family; Brad and I talk about that. But that's not what we're focussing on at this time, by any means. We're not here for that. We're here to see how we can help protect the children in country and scale up the needs here. AMANPOUR: So when you went to SOS, you saw some of the children, correct? Who had been -- well, who had been taken out or at least they tried -- the Baptist missionaries we're trying to take them out. You saw some of those children at the SOS facility? JOLIE: I did. I did. AMANPOUR: And how were they doing? JOLIE: And they seemed -- well, it's a beautiful facility. It didn't crumble to the ground. It's actually a wonderful, happy place for children. They seem very, very cared for. I don't know how much you can talk about the discussions with those children, because it's an ongoing case. But I will say they did mention -- the two that I spoke to did mention their parents and their desire to see their parents. AMANPOUR: Obviously you can't get into the legal ramifications of what's going on right now, but what is your opinion on this group who came and just wanted to take these kids out to the Dominican Republic and then maybe to the Unites States? JOLIE: You know, I think there's been a lot of discussion about them and I think they're being used as an example case. I don't know enough of the facts and I don't know -- I think we all like to believe that people have very good intentions. And I don't -- I'm certainly not the one to say anything negative. But there are real traffickers that we do know of and we do have to all take that into serious consideration for these children. And so, what is the big picture? How can we help the -- before the earthquake, there was some 380,000 orphans living in horrible conditions. There are many more now, but we don't know who is an orphan. I've met women in the Dominican Republic in hospitals who were saying they haven't spoken to their children. They have no cell phones, they have no way to tell their children they're alive. They can't find them yet. And so there's -- that's the most important thing that we can do, is just protect everybody, give them aid, start to register them and try to help them with reunification. And then we can discuss ways to help them beyond that. And we all need to be here -- which is the other discussion, we all have to help these children and this country for a very long time. And you know...
