Rocio Cifuentes is a Welsh social worker and academic, serving as the

Children's Commissioner for Wales The Children's Commissioner for Wales is responsible for protecting children's rights as set out in the Convention on the Rights of the Child. Peter Clarke (Children's Commissioner for Wales), Peter Clarke was the Commissioner from its introduct ...

since 2022. Born to political dissidents in

Chile Chile, officially the Republic of Chile, is a country in western South America. It is the southernmost country in the world and the closest to Antarctica, stretching along a narrow strip of land between the Andes, Andes Mountains and the Paci ...

under the dictatorship of Pinochet, Cifuentes spent her childhood years as a

refugee A refugee, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), is a person "forced to flee their own country and seek safety in another country. They are unable to return to their own country because of feared persecution as ...

Swansea Swansea ( ; ) is a coastal City status in the United Kingdom, city and the List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, second-largest city of Wales. It forms a Principal areas of Wales, principal area, officially known as the City and County of ...

. After studying at

Cambridge Cambridge ( ) is a List of cities in the United Kingdom, city and non-metropolitan district in the county of Cambridgeshire, England. It is the county town of Cambridgeshire and is located on the River Cam, north of London. As of the 2021 Unit ...

and

universities, she worked in social work, charity and academia. In 2022, she was appointed as Children's Commissioner for Wales by

Mark Drakeford Mark Drakeford (born 19 September 1954) is a Welsh politician who has served as Cabinet Secretary for Finance since September 2024, having previously held the position from 2016 to 2018. He previously served as First Minister of Wales and L ...

Early life and education

Rocio Cifuentes was born in Chile during the military dictatorship of

General Pinochet Augusto José Ramón Pinochet Ugarte (25 November 1915 – 10 December 2006) was a Chilean military officer and politician who was the dictator of Chile from 1973 to 1990. From 1973 to 1981, he was the leader of the military junta, which in ...

. Her parents had been student activists attempting to help the poor under a previous left-wing government. Her father later wrote that he was imprisoned and tortured by the regime. In 1977, when Cifuentes was 13 months old, the family fled to the UK fearing for their safety and settled in Swansea. She has said about her childhood that "There was at the time a larger Chilean community in Swansea where I grew up, so it he experience of the Pinochet dictatorshipwas around me and it certainly shaped my values and who I am." Cifuentes studied

Social and Political Sciences The Faculty of Human, Social, and Political Science at the University of Cambridge was created in 2011 out of a merger of the Faculty of Archaeology and Anthropology and the Faculty of Politics, Psychology, Sociology and International Studies. ...

at Cambridge University and later obtained a

Master's degree A master's degree (from Latin ) is a postgraduate academic degree awarded by universities or colleges upon completion of a course of study demonstrating mastery or a high-order overview of a specific field of study or area of professional prac ...

Social research Social research is research conducted by social scientists following a systematic plan. Social research methodologies can be classified as quantitative and qualitative. * Quantitative designs approach social phenomena through quantifiable ...

from Swansea University.

Career

Cifuentes was chief executive of the Ethnic Minorities and Youth Support Team (EYST), a Welsh organisation supporting ethnic minorities, for seventeen years prior to becoming Wales' children's commissioner. She had also previously worked for the Council of Ethnic Minority Voluntary Organisations, Swansea Young Single Homelessness Project, Gower College and Swansea University.

Children's Commissioner for Wales

In January 2022, Welsh First Minister

announced that Cifuentes would become the Children's Commissioner for Wales at the end of her predecessor

Sally Holland Sally Holland is a registered social worker, researcher, and teacher, who was the Children's Commissioner for Wales 2015–2022. Early life Holland was born in Scotland. She moved to Wales in 1992 and became an academic at Cardiff University ...

's tenure. She was recommended for the role of Wales' children commissioner by a cross-party committee of MS's and took up the role in April 2022. She said in an interview shortly before starting that the COVID-19 pandemic's impact on children and young people would be one of her focus'. She was given an MBE at the

Queen's Birthday Honours The Birthday Honours, in some Commonwealth realms, mark the King's Official Birthday, reigning monarch's official birthday in each realm by granting various individuals appointment into Order (honour), national or Dynastic order of knighthood, dy ...

in 2022.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Cifuentes, Rocio Children's Commissioners for Wales Chilean emigrants to the United Kingdom 1970s births Living people Members_of_the_Order_of_the_British_Empire