Karyn Kaplan, Executive Director of Asia Catalyst, will draw on Asia Catalyst’s ongoing advocacy work promoting the right to health in China and Southeast Asia and will explore how legislative and administrative measures in the region are affecting advocacy and basic activist group survival, particularly among marginalized groups with whom Asia Catalyst works, including sex workers, LGBT individuals, and people who use drugs. Ms. Kaplyn will also discuss avenues to support and advocate for grassroots organizations in China and in Southeast Asia in the midst of new NGO registration requirements.

Karyn Kaplan has worked on health and human rights issues in Asia since 1988, when she moved to Chiang Mai, Thailand and volunteered with a local sex worker rights group, EMPOWER. Since then, she has become a leading advocate on access to medicines, harm reduction and global drug policy issues. She co-founded Thai AIDS Treatment Action Group (TTAG) with HIV-positive activist, Paisan Suwannawong in 2002, to focus on HIV/AIDS treatment access for highly marginalized groups, especially people who inject drugs, migrant sex workers, and people in prison.

Brown Bag Lunch Series