Rebeca Rios-Kohn J.D.

Executive Director

Rebeca Rios-Kohn has over 30 years of experience working for the United Nations in the areas of human rights, women’s and children’s rights and held senior level positions.
Since 2015 she serves as Director of Arigatou International New York Office, a not-for-profit organization working for children with headquarters in Japan and leads the global initiative Prayer and Action for Children.

Ms. Rios-Kohn was one of the lead writers of Faith and Children’s Rights: A Multi-religious Study on the Convention on the Rights of the Child, developed by Arigatou International with diverse faith leaders, theologians, and human rights experts. This unique study was published in 2019 and is available at: www.arigatouinternational.org.

After receiving a Juris Doctor from the University of Richmond, Virginia, Ms. Rios-Kohn practiced law in the states of Virginia and New York. Thereafter, she held senior level positions with UNICEF and United Nations Development Programme where she advocated for human rights reaching out to policymakers, government officials, parliamentarians, judges, and religious leaders. She has worked in over 30 countries leading advocacy, communication and research initiatives focused on vulnerable communities, women and children. Over the years, Ms. Rios-Kohn authored a number of articles and academic papers for law journals, developed studies and training materials on a wide range of subjects, and co-authored Protecting the World’s Children, a UNICEF publication (2007). She is a citizen of Uruguay and France and resides in the United States.

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