WITNESS

WITNESS is an international nonprofit organization that uses the power of video and storytelling to open the eyes of the world to human rights abuses. It was founded in 1992 by musician and human rights advocate Peter Gabriel, Human Rights First, and the Reebok Human Rights Foundation. The WITNESS Media Archive was launched in 2004 to manage the collection of video created within their campaigns and partnerships. Today the archive is the repository for over 5000 hours of video, both original raw footage and edited productions used in advocacy campaigns, from over 80 countries and 100 grassroots human rights partners, and covering a broad range of issues. Four collections are currently available online, with another collection (below divider) in process.

Global Survival Network's Documentary Footage for "Bought & Sold"

Bought & Sold: An Investigative Documentary About the International Trade in Women, filmed between 1995-1997, investigates the illegal trafficking of women out of Russia and into Asia, Europe, and the United States through interviews with trafficked women, traffickers, law enforcement officials, social workers, and mafia members in Russia, Eastern Europe, and Japan.

Genres:B-roll, Interviews

Languages:English, Russian

Date range:1996

Extent:

4 assets

Jesús Tecú Osorio's Footage of Rabinal, Guatemala

This collection contains video footage shot by WITNESS partner Jesús Tecú Osorio, an activist and survivor of the March 13, 1982 massacre of 177 Mayan-Achi women and children in Río Negro, Rabinal by the Guatemalan army. This collection includes recorded interviews and footage from the Rabinal area of exhumations, memorial ceremonies and reburials, political actions against amnesty for those responsible for the killings, and gatherings of former civil patrollers.

Genres:Ceremonies, Cultural events, Documentary film, Exhumations, Interviews, Judicial events, Meetings

Languages:Achi, English, Spanish

Date range:1996 - 2003

Extent:

54 assets

The Ella Baker Center for Human Rights documentary footage collection

The Ella Baker Center for Human Rights documentary footage collection consists of seventeen videos of raw footage documenting political protests, rallies, interviews, and community events that draw attention to police brutality, youth, and the U.S. prison industry. The organization used the footage to create the documentaries "Books Not Bars" (2001) and "System Failure: Violence, Abuse and Neglect in the California Youth Authority" (2004).

Genres:Conference proceedings, Cultural events, Demonstrations, Documentary film, Hearings, Workshops

Languages:English, Spanish

Date range:1998 - 1999

Extent:

17 assets

Women's Caucus for Gender Justice's Documentary Footage for "If Hope Were Enough"

The Women's Caucus for Gender Justice, in association with WITNESS, produced If Hope Were Enough for the purposes of education, advocacy, and capacity building as part of the organization's outreach efforts to promote the International Criminal Court. Through interviews with survivors of gender-based violence in Korea, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Rwanda, Afghanistan and Mexico, If Hope Were Enough documents the ways in which women have worked to seek accountability for crimes of sexual and gender violence in conflict and non-conflict situations around the world.

Genres:B-roll, Documentary film, Interviews, Meetings, Panels

Languages:English, French, Korean, Spanish, Tzotzil

Date range:1998 - 2000

Extent:

46 assets

Operation Fine Girl Footage

Operation Fine Girl: Rape Used As a Weapon of War in Sierra Leone looks at the widespread and strategic use of rape and sexual violence against women during the decade-long civil war in Sierra Leone. Operation Fine Girl was produced by and for the Oxygen network's Worth The Risk series, in partnership with WITNESS, who brought together Binta Mansaray, their local partner in Sierra Leone, and Academy Award-nominated director Lilibet Foster to make the documentary.