Defence for Children International

Defence for Children International'' (DCI) "is an independent non-governmental organisation that has been promoting and protecting children’s rights on a global, regional, national and local level for over 25 years. The movement was founded in July 1979 by Nigel Cantwell and Canon Moerman, the chair of the International Year of the Child, at a time when children's rights were not the main focus of many organizations. The International Year of the Child instigated the dissemination of an unprecedented amount of information about children's rights violations such as torture, prostitution, economic exploitation, arbitrary detention, and trafficking and sale. At the time, few international structures were dedicated to a human rights-based approach to the many problems faced by the world's children.  DCI was established in direct response to this void."


 * Rifat Odeh Kassis - President
 * Rebecca Morton - Executive Director

"In September 2005, Jorge Restrepo left his position as Coordinator of the International Secretariat.

"As of September 2005, staff at the International Secretariat consisted of William Duke (Administrative Assistant) replacing Maya Arida, Carlos Pampin Garcia (Juvenile Justice Desk) who replaced Valerie Quere in January 2005, and Camille Kryspin who is responsible for the Resource Centre.

Funding
"In 2006, external funding for the activities of DCI’s International Secretariat was kindly provided by the following organisations (in alphabetical order):
 * CIDA (Canadian International Development Agency)
 * Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs
 * Kerkinactie (Bureau Europe and the Americas of the Dept for Global
 * Ministries of the Protestant Church in the Netherlands)
 * Kinderpostzegels
 * OAK Foundation
 * OXFAM Novib

Executive Council (2005)

 * Rifat Odeh Kassis (President) Palestine
 * Benoit van Keirsbilck (Treasurer) Belgium
 * Virginia Murillo (Vice-president Americas) Costa Rica
 * Laurencio Akohin (Vice president Africa) Togo
 * Majorie Kaandorp (Vice president Europe) Netherlands
 * Fukuda Masaaki (Vice president Asia) Japan
 * Marcos Guillen (Member) Argentina
 * Innocent Garakumbe (Member) Uganda

Contact

 * Web: http://www.dci-is.org

Related Sourcewatch

 * Martin Ennals - Helped found DCI