Giselle Portenier is an acclaimed documentary filmmaker and journalist who has consistently focused on human rights, especially the human rights of women and children. Her groundbreaking films have received numerous international awards including two Peabody awards, and have been instrumental in changing minds, changing lives, and changing laws.
She started her career as a reporter and anchor at BCTV News in Vancouver, and worked as foreign editor for ABC News and as an Associate Producer for CBS 60 Minutes in London, England, before joining the BBC in 1986. During her time there, she produced and directed dozens of documentaries, including Murder in Purdah about honour killings in Pakistan; Condemned to Live, about torture and rape during the Rwandan genocide; The Slave Children, about child slavery in West Africa; The Disposables, about the murder of homeless people, petty thieves, and homosexuals in Colombia; Dying for Sex, about sex trafficking in Thailand, and Let Her Die, about the murder of baby girls and the huge numbers of female fetuses aborted in India. Most recently she wrote about the plight of thousands of survivors of FGM (female genital mutilation) living in Canada. She was the first CanWest Global visiting professor at the School of Journalism at the University of British Columbia and in 2014, received an honorary Doctor of Laws from Carleton University. Portenier is on the Board of the Canadian Journalism Forum on Violence and Trauma. She regularly speaks about journalism and human rights, and lives in Vancouver with her husband, Chris Browne.
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