Inside Angelina Jolie's Domestic Violence Advocacy Since Filing for Divorce and How Her Kids Got Involved

Since filing for divorce from Brad Pitt in 2016, Angelina Jolie has been an advocate on matters like reauthorizing the Violence Against Women Act

Angelina Jolie shifted her focus to seeking reform for those affected by domestic violence in the years since splitting with Brad Pitt.

The actress filed for divorce from Pitt on Sept. 19, 2016, just days after a private plane flight on which he allegedly became drunkenly abusive toward her and their kids. She declined to press charges at the time, and after multiple investigations Pitt was not charged by authorities. He has denied allegations of abuse.

A source close to Jolie tells PEOPLE that she wanted to "focus on changing laws over telling public stories" about her experience.

After 20 years working with the UN Refugee Agency, Jolie, 49, departed her role as UNHCR’s Special Envoy in December 2022 to focus on other humanitarian endeavors.

Her advocacy work has included areas of domestic violence, including the reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act, which seeks to prevent and respond to domestic violence, sexual assault, dating violence and stalking.

Jolie said in a March 2022 interview with NBC News' Kate Snow that the cause should be "personal to everyone — everyone who cares about family, everyone who cares about children, everyone who cares about their own safety and the health of their community."

"This country doesn't recognize what a serious domestic violence and child abuse problem it really has," the actress added at the time.

Related: Angelina Jolie's 8-Year Divorce Battle with Brad Pitt Has Been 'Horrendous' (Exclusive Source)

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One of Jolie's six kids with Pitt, Zahara joined mom in Washington, D.C., to meet with lawmakers on several occasions when she was 17, including when VAWA was reauthorized into law by President Joe Biden in March 2022. VAWA added an initiative that Jolie helped push for: funding for technology that better detects bruising and injuries across skin tones and related training, highlighting a racial disparity.

She wrote about this in a July 2023 op-ed published in the American Journal of Nursing.

"Medical research, imagery and training continue to center on white skin, not on how injuries present differently in patients with darker skin tone. As a result, medical professionals — including nurses and forensic examiners — often miss injuries depending on race and ethnicity," she wrote, sharing that Zahara, who is from Ethiopia, had a medical procedure where she was told to look for "pink near her incisions" to check for improper healing.

"As the mother of children of multiple races, I have seen my children of color be misdiagnosed, at times in ways that endangered their health."

Related: Why Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt's Divorce Took 8 Years: Legal Experts Explain the 'Perfect Storm' (Exclusive)

In a September 2021 interview with The Guardian, Jolie was asked about dealing with alleged abuse in her own home after years of humanitarian work for the rights of others. "Often you cannot recognize something in a personal way, especially if your focus is on the greatest global injustices, because everything else seems smaller. It’s so hard," she said at the time.

"I’m not the kind of person who makes decisions like the decisions I had to make lightly," added Jolie at the time. "It took a lot for me to be in a position where I felt I had to separate from the father of my children."

Details of the allegedly abusive plane trip were included in a 2022 cross-complaint submitted by Jolie's legal team in the exes' separate winery lawsuit. At the time a source close to Pitt, 61, said the filing included "completely untrue information."

Jolie's lawyers alleged in a previous filing in that legal battle that Pitt's "history of physical abuse of Jolie started well before the family’s September 2016 plane trip" and that the flight "marked the first time he turned his physical abuse on the children as well."

A rep for Pitt declined to comment at the time, and a source said, "There was a lengthy custody trial that involved the entire history of their relationship, and a judge who heard all the evidence still granted him 50/50 custody." (A private judge overseeing their custody case was later disqualified by an appeals court and the ruling did not go into effect.)

A divorce lawyer for Pitt has also previously said that the actor accepted responsibility for some things in his past but that he would not accept responsibility for things he did not do.

In a wide-ranging 2017 GQ interview, Pitt revealed that he was sober and "just started therapy." The actor said at the time, "For me this period has really been about looking at my weaknesses and failures and owning my side of the street.

Together Pitt and Jolie share six kids: Maddox, 23, Pax, 21, Zahara, 19, Shiloh, 18, and twins Knox and Vivienne, 16. As a source indicated in July 2024, Pitt has "virtually no contact" with their adult children, however, per an agreement with Jolie, "he has visitation with the younger kids."

The distance from his kids “pains him,” a source previously told PEOPLE. “He loves his children and misses them. It’s very sad.”

If you are experiencing domestic violence, call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-7233, or go to thehotline.org. All calls are toll-free and confidential. The hotline is available 24/7 in more than 170 languages.