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Virginia Murillo Herrera, born in 1964 in San Jose, Costa Rica, is a sociologist with an expertise in Local Development Management, with over 17 years work experience as a Child Rights Advocate and Activist.
She began her carrier in the Child Rights field in the international NGO Defence for Children International in 1991 from Geneva Head Quarters. in 1994 as Executive President of DCI Costa Rica, position she holds until know. In 2002 was elected as Board Member of the International Council [periods 2002-2005 & 2005/2008] and in 2005 as Vice-President for the Americas for DCI (june 2005- july 2008).
DCI has won several prizes during her Presidency. In 1996 the Ombudsman awarded DCI the prize “Defensoría de los Habitantes de la República” in recognition of its work. In the following years the organization received other awards from UNICEF and Global March against Child Labour, and in 2005 DCI was recognized for “Contributions to the improvement of the quality of life” by the Ombudsman and the national universities of Costa Rica.
At national level, Ms. Murillo was founding member and Chair of the Costa Rican National Child Rights Coalition (1994-2005). Part of her achievements in this position was to coordinate the first two National Alternatives Reports of Costa Rica’s to the Committee on the Rights of the Child in Geneva, to represent the Child Rights NGOs in different scenarios and in the National Council of Children’s Rights where she became VicePresident of the National Council for a period of 3 years. Also during this period she strengthens and motivated the advocacy work done on child rights by national coalitions in Central America and Mexico sub region.
At Regional Level she co-founded the “Foros Iberoamericanos de Ongs de Infancia y Adolesentes” and as co-founder of the Latin America Regional Secretariat for the United Nations Study on Violence Against Children; she has been actively involved in all follow-up activities at regional and international level and has been coordinating the Violence Working Group of the Global Movement for Children/Latin America and Caribbean Chapter and actively participating as International NGO Representative to the AD Council of NGOs for the UN Study on Violence.
Active member on several international networks such as: Global March Against Child Labour; Global Movement for Children – Latin America and the Caribbean Chapter; Andi Network; Defence for Children International – DCI; Interantional Ad Council for the follow-up of the UN Study on Violence and Regional Action Group on Violence
Recently Virginia has been appointed by the UN Secretary General as a member of the UN Voluntary Trust Fund on Contemporary Forms of Slavery for a period of 3 years (1st January 2008 - 21 December 2010)
Themes of expertise: Violence Against Children, Child Labour, Domestic Child Labour, Public Policies and National Child Rights Systems, Child Rights, Local Development, Child Participation, Juvenile Justice, Promotion of the Right to Education, Gender.
Author of several articles and publications published at local and international levels.
Fluent in English, French and Spanish. |
