Giselle Portenier is an acclaimed documentary filmmaker and journalist who focuses on human rights, especially the human rights of women and children. Her groundbreaking films have received numerous international prizes including two Peabody awards; they’ve also  been instrumental in changing minds, changing hearts, and changing laws. 

Portenier started her career as a reporter and anchor at BCTV News in Vancouver, then worked as foreign editor for ABC News and as Associate Producer for CBS 60 Minutes before joining the BBC in London in 1986. At the BBC 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, and Let Her Die about the murder of baby girls and the huge numbers of female fetuses aborted in India. 

 Her latest independent documentary, In the Name of Your Daughter, celebrates young Tanzanian girls who risk their lives to escape Female Genital Mutilation and child marriage. The film has been shown at festivals and on TV around the world, in parliaments in the UK, The Netherlands and Australia, has won numerous awards, and is being used as a tool for change. Portenier is a co-founder of the End FGM Canada Network which advocates for support for girls and women living with the consequences of FGM and for protocols to protect girls at risk 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. Giselle Portenier regularly speaks about journalism and human rights, and lives in Vancouver with her husband, Chris Browne.

@giselleportenie