Angelina Jolie and Daughter Zahara Meet with Lawmakers in Photos from D.C. Trip: 'We Need Reforms'

Angelina Jolie and her daughter Zahara spoke with advocates and lawmakers about how to "modernize and strengthen" the Violence Against Women Act

Photo: Angelina Jolie/Instagram

Angelina Jolie and her 16-year-old daughter Zahara are making a difference together.

On Friday, the Eternals actress, 46, shared photos from a recent mother-daughter trip to Washington, D.C., where the pair met with advocates and politicians to support the Violence Against Women Act.

"Honored to visit Washington, DC, with Zahara, working with advocates and lawmakers to modernize and strengthen the #ViolenceAgainstWomenAct to include protections for children's health and safety, communities of color, tribes, LGBTQ survivors, rural areas, and all survivors," wrote Jolie in the caption.

"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," she added.

Jolie directed her Instagram followers to go online to "learn more about VAWA reauthorization and why safety can't wait," and to "encourage Senators to cosponsor and support #VAWA4ALL."

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In the first photo, Jolie and Zahara pose with Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee of Texas, who is a co-sponsor of the House VAWA Reauthorization.

The Oscar winner is then pictured meeting with Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, co-sponsor of the Senate VAWA Reauthorization. In the final photo, she speaks during a "working session at the Embassy of Tribal Nations with Kerri Colfer (Tlingit), Senior Native Affairs Advisor, National Indigenous Women's Resource Center @NIWRC, and Kelbie Kennedy (Choctaw), Policy Counsel, National Congress of American Indians @NCAI1944 on #TribalVAWA."

Angelina Jolie/Instagram

Jolie, a longtime advocate for refugees through her work with the United Nations, is mom to six kids: Maddox, 20, Pax, 18, Zahara, Shiloh, 15 and 13-year-old twins Vivienne and Knox. In October, she told PEOPLE that her children are "pretty great people."

"And because there's so many of them, I think they've had a very significant effect on each other. It's not like I'm the head of anything. I'm very honest with my kids. And I'm very human with my kids," she explained.

Jolie said she is "curious about all the different aspects of who they are" when raising them, and her priority is to "be there to support and develop all the different aspects of who they are."

"I have six very individual human beings in my home. I am so excited about all the different stages and feelings and curiosities that they go through. Why wouldn't you be?" Jolie said at the time. "We're supposed to help them figure out who they are. And you can't figure out who they are if you don't enthusiastically develop with them."