Jo Becker is the Children’s Rights Advocacy Director for Human Rights Watch, an independent organization that conducts regular, systematic investigations of human rights abuses in some seventy countries around the world. Ms. Becker represents Human Rights Watch before the press, government officials, and the general public, and works with other non-governmental and international organizations to stop abuses against children, including the use of children as soldiers, hazardous child labor, and ill-treatment during detention. Ms. Becker was the founding chairperson of the international Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers and serves on the steering committee of the U.S. Campaign to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers. She has testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on the issue of child soldiers and conducted recent field investigations on the use of child soldiers in Burma and Northern Uganda. Ms. Becker was also the co-convener of the Child Rights Caucus, a broad network encompassing hundreds of national and international non-governmental organizations that support the rights of children. Beginning in the spring of 2000, the Caucus lobbied actively for the recognition and promotion of children’s rights at the May 2002 United Nations General Assembly Special Session on Children. Her writing has appeared in the Washington Post, New York Times, International Herald Tribune, Christian Science Monitor, Miami Herald and numerous magazines. She is also author of Human Rights Watch reports on the detention of unaccompanied minors by the US Immigration and Naturalization Service and worldwide violence against children. Prior to joining the staff of Human Rights Watch, Ms. Becker was the executive director of the Fellowship of Reconciliation (FOR), a national interfaith peace and justice organization. Ms. Becker has an International Baccalaureate from the Lester B. Pearson United World College of the Pacific, a BA from Goshen College (IN), and a Master’s degree in Political Science from the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University.