Gillian Caldwell
Biography
Gillian Caldwell is a film maker and an attorney with experience in the areas of international human rights, civil rights, intellectual property, contracts, and family law. She is the Executive Director of WITNESS (www.witness.org), a global organization that advances human rights advocacy through the use of video and communications technology. In partnership with non-governmental organizations and activists, WITNESS strengthens grassroots movements for change by assisting its partners to create and use video as evidence before courts and the United Nations, as a tool for public education, and as a deterrent to further abuse. WITNESS also gives local groups a global voice by distributing their video to the media and on the Internet, and by helping to educate and activate an international audience around their causes. At WITNESS, she has helped produce numerous documentary videos for use in advocacy campaigns around the world, including Behind the Labels: Garment Workers on US Saipan, Books Not Bars, and Operation Fine Girl: Rape Used as a Weapon of War in Sierra Leone Gillian was formerly the Co-Director of the Global Survival Network, where she coordinated a two-year undercover investigation into the trafficking of women for forced prostitution from Russia and the Newly Independent States that helped spur new anti-trafficking legislation in the US and abroad. She also produced and directed Bought & Sold, a documentary film based on the investigation which received widespread media coverage, including BBC, CNN, ABC, The New York Times, and The Washington Post. Gillian lived in South Africa during 1991 and 1992, investigating hit squads and security force involvement in township violence, and has worked in Boston, Washington DC and New York on issued related to poverty and violence. She is a member of the Social Venture Network, promoting new models and leadership for socially and environmentally sustainable business in the 21st century. She also serves on several Advisory Boards and Steering Committees, including the Center for Social Media, the Center for Global Law and Human Rights (South Africa/US), the Hamptons International Film Festival - Conflict and Resolution Division, and the International Human Rights Exchange (South Africa/US). In 2000 she was honored with the Rockefeller Foundation Next Generation Leadership Award, and in 2001she was named one of 40 outstanding social entrepreneurs worldwide by the Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship. She received a magna cum laude BA from Harvard University in 1984 and a cum laude J.D. from Georgetown University in 1992, where she was honored as a Public Interest Law Scholar.