Panel of Judges - 2020 Global Media Competition on Labour Migration

Rosa María Calaf

Rosa María Calaf is a journalist with 39 years of professional experience. She developed her career at RTVE spending 26 years abroad as a correspondent in New York, Moscow, Buenos Aires, Rome, Vienna, Hong-Kong and Beijing. She reported for RTVE on politics and economics, conflicts and disasters, culture and society. She was a member of the founding team of Televisión de Cataluña TV3, as Head of Programs and Production. She is currently retired and dedicates her time to teaching, outreach and she is a Jury member for several International Journalism Awards.

Born in Barcelona, she has a degree in Law and Journalism, and was awarded a scholarship in European Institutions (Free University of Brussels), and has a degree in Political Science (Extension Courses University of California-Los Angeles). She is also a doctor honoris causa by the Universitat Rovira i Virgili of Tarragona, the Universidad Miguel Hernández of Elche and the Universidad Jaume I of Castellón.  Her extensive career as a journalist has been recognized with more than 30 awards, including the Ondas Award for Best Professional Work, the National Journalism Award of Catalonia, the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Academy of Television, the United Nations Women Together Award, as well as the Gold Medal from the Red Cross and the Civil Merit Medal from the Government of Spain

Agnes Igoye

Agnes Igoye escaped human traffickers at 14, when the Lord’s Resistance Army raided her village in search of virgins. Today, she is Uganda’s deputy national coordinator - Prevention of human trafficking and Commandant Uganda Immigration Academy. She contributes to teach a child protection course at Harvard University. Agnes sits on various regional committees on Migration and is a member of the Labour Migration Expert reference Group at the Inter-governmental Authority on Development regional Economic Community.  

A senior Aspen New Voices Fellow, Agnes writes and speaks extensively about Migration. She has spoken to USA Members of Congress and at UK Houses of Parliament advocating for sustainable laws and policies to counter human trafficking and ensure safe and orderly migration. Agnes built a rehabilitation center for survivors of human trafficking in Uganda and serves as an Ambassador and Mentor at The Clinton Global Initiative University. One of New African Magazine’ 100 most influential Africans in 2015, Agnes is a recipient of several awards including  the Diane Von Furstenberg (DVF) International Award; The Josephine S. Vernon award-Harvard Kennedy School; University of Minnesota’s Distinguished Leadership Award for Internationals; Global Freedom Exchange Award from Vital Voices and Hilton Worldwide Global Partnership and the 2017 Clinton Global Initiative University (CGI U) Alumni Honor Roll from President Bill Clinton and Chelsea Clinton.

She is a Harvard University Mid-Career MPA graduate, a 2010/11 Fulbright/Hubert Humphrey Fellow (University of Minnesota), and an alum of Oxford University where she studied forced migration.

Michelle Leighton

Michelle Leighton is Chief of the Labour Migration Branch for the International Labour Organization where she directs the Office’s work on labour migration and mobility, and supports policies and programs related to migrants and refugees.  She has expertise in the fields of international law, labour migration, human rights, and economic development, and received her LL.M degree from the London School of Economics and Political Science, London, England in 1987.

She serves as an expert appointed to the UNFCCC WIM Task Force on displacement related to climate change, and formerly a member of the World Economic Forum Global Agenda Council on Migration. Ms. Leighton has led global and field research teams, including on linkages between human migration and development, environmental and climate change. She has taught on law faculties in Asia, Europe and the United States and authored numerous publications. Following her service as a Fulbright Scholar in Central Asia, she co-founded the American University of Central Asia’s Tian Shan Policy Center at the American University in Bishkek. She has been an adviser and consultant to international institutions, government, and non-profit organizations, leading technical cooperation projects in the Americas, Africa, Europe and Central Asia. She served as the Munich Re Foundation Chair on Social Vulnerability for the UNU-Environment and Human Security institute, Bonn, Germany, as an expert on the German Marshall Fund’s Trans-Atlantic Study Team on Climate and Migration, and Director of the Center for Law and Global Justice Human Rights Program at the University of San Francisco Law School. Early in her career, she co-founded the NGO Natural Heritage Institute in San Francisco, leading programs on environment, migration, corporate social responsibility, and human rights.
 

Jean Milligan

Jean began her career as a documentary filmmaker and journalist. She worked for over a decade in communications at the International Committee of the Red Cross, producing award-winning multimedia features, photo exhibitions and publications. More recently, she served as spokesperson and press focal point for the Inter-Parliamentary Union. She is currently Director of Communications at the International Organisation of Employers.

Vani Saraswathi

Vani Saraswathi is the Associate Editor and Director of Projects at Migrant-Rights.org (a content based advocacy platform), and the author of Stories of Origin: The Invisible Lives of Migrants in the Gulf. Vani moved to Qatar in 1999, working with several local and regional publications, and launching some of Qatar’s leading periodicals during her 17-year stint there. During her stay in Qatar she, along with likeminded people, mobilised a grassroots community to help migrants in distress. She writes extensively on human rights issues.

Since 2014, in her role with Migrant-Rights.org she reports from the Gulf states and countries of origin. She also organises advocacy projects and human rights training targeting individual employers, embassies, recruitment agents and businesses in Qatar, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and the UAE, working with nationals and long-term residents in these countries. A special emphasis is on female migrants, including domestic workers. Much of her advocacy effort is geared towards mainstreaming issues facing female migrant workers. She is a member of the Migration Advisory Group (previous Policy Advisory Committee) of ILO Regional Office for Arab States, and she has worked with ILO Addis Ababa on training modules for labour attaches being deployed to the Gulf states. She contributes as an expert commentator on issues related to human rights in the GCC for various international publications and at international forums. Vani divides her time between India, Qatar and other GCC states.