[1] She is married to Francisco Rico-Martinez, with whom she co-directs the Toronto-based Faithful Companions of Jesus Refugee Centre.
[2] Rico and her family moved to Canada as refugees in 1990[3] in order to escape political repression in El Salvador.
[4] In 2004, the Toronto City Council gave her the Constance E. Hamilton Award on the Status of Women.
[6] When Joy Smith released "Connecting the Dots", a proposal for the National Action Plan to Combat Human Trafficking, Rico criticized the proposal for being too focused on those who create the demand for sex trafficking, saying that it therefore did not sufficiently address victim rehabilitation.
"[9] Specifically, she criticized Jason Kenney, Minister of Citizenship and Immigration, for having promised that Canada would resettle more refugees from 2011-2012 than in previous years, but not following through on this promise; instead, there was a 26% drop in refugee resettlement in Canada during that period, hitting a 30-year low.