Jo Becker, advocacy director for the children's rights division, frequently represents Human Rights Watch before the media, government officials and the general public on issues including child soldiers, abusive child labor, and juvenile justice, her primary areas of expertise. Becker founded the International Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers and was a leading advocate for the international treaty prohibiting the use of child combatants, adopted by the United Nations in 2000. She has conducted fact-finding missions on child soldiers in Northern Uganda, Burma, Sri Lanka and Nepal. Before joining Human Rights Watch in 1997, Becker was the executive director of the Fellowship of Reconciliation, a national interfaith peace and justice organization. She graduated from Goshen College in Indiana and has a M.A. in Political Science from the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University.

Human Rights Watch Reports

Funding the "Final War": LTTE Intimidation and Extortion in the Tamil Diaspora (March 15, 2006)

Living in Fear: Child Soldiers and the Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka (November 11, 2004)

Stolen Children: Abduction and Recruitment in Northern Uganda (March 28, 2003)

Articles

"UN Inaction and the China Factor: Child Soldiers in Burma," International Herlad Tribune, September 13-14, 2008 

"Suffer the Little Soldiers," South China Morning Post, November 2, 2007

"Tiger at the Door," The Guardian, March 16, 2006

 "Canada's Tamils Must Rethink LTTE Support," The Toronto Star, December 19, 2004

 "A Gun as Tall as Me," The Wall Street Journal Asia, January 20, 2004