Mallika Dutt is the founder and executive director of Breakthrough, an international human rights organization that uses media and popular culture to promote values of dignity, equality and justice. Breakthrough works through offices in India and the United States and addresses a range of issues including gender-based discrimination, HIV/AIDS, immigrant rights and racial justice.
Until December 2000, Mallika was the Program Officer for the Human Rights & Social Justice Program at the Ford Foundation’s New Delhi office. She focused on addressing the rights of marginalized communities like dalits, adivasis, and women. Dutt also served as the Associate Director of the Center for Women’s Global Leadership, where she held the first US meeting to create links between human rights domestically and abroad.
Mallika authored the widely-referenced With Liberty and Justice for All: Women's Human Rights in the United States. She was also the co-author of the globally utilized manual, Local Action Global Change: Learning About the Human Rights of Women and Girls.
While studying law at New York University, Dutt co-founded Sakhi for South Asian Women, combating the violence against women in the New York community. She was also an Arthur Garfield Hays Civil Rights Fellow, and worked at the Center for Constitutional Rights and the ACLU Reproductive Freedom Project.
Mallika has served on several boards and committees, including the Human Rights Watch Women's Rights Project and Asia Watch, Sister Fund, Asian American Pacific Islanders in Philanthropy, Lt. Governor Committee on Public Police Relations, Committee on Sex and Law - the Association of the Bar of the City of New York, and the US NGO Coordinating Committee for the UN World Conference Against Racism. She is currently on the Board of WITNESS.
She is the recipient of many awards including the Link TV Award (2005) for best music video, Spirit of Asian American Award (USA, 2003); Phoenix Award for Service (USA, 2002); National Citizen's Award for Contribution to Women and Development (India, 2001); South Asian Women's Creative Collective Award (USA, 2001); Screen Award India for best Indipop music video (2001), NYU Law School BLAPA Alumni Award for Distinguished Service (USA, 2006); the Public Interest Law Foundation Alumni Award (USA,1991). Mallika graduated from New York University School of Law with a JD in 1989 and is a member of the New York State Bar. She also has a graduate and undergraduate degree in International Affairs from Columbia University and Mt. Holyoke College respectively.
Mallika grew up in Kolkata and Mirzapur in India and is currently based in NY with her husband Sumit Ghosal and their dogs, Piko and Sulta.