China HIV/AIDS
China Initiative Meetings

This is part of the continuing series of meetings looking at different aspects of the AIDS epidemic in China. Future meetings will be added as they occur.

18 September 2003: Human Rights Watch Report on HIV/AIDS in China
Speaker Meg Davis, researcher and author of the report, Locked Doors: The Human Rights of People Living with HIV/AIDS in China. Human Rights Watch, September 2003. The report states that widespread discrimination against people with HIV/AIDS is fueling the spread of the epidemic in China. The 94-page report is based on more than 30 interviews with people with HIV/AIDS, police officers, drug users, and AIDS outreach workers in Beijing, Hong Kong, and Yunnan province. The report is available at the Human Rights Watch website.
Web: www.hrw.org/reports/2003/china0803

16 July 2003: Chung To, an HIV activist from China
Chung is a founder and leading light in the Chi Heng Foundation, set up in Hong Kong to promote advocacy and programmes within China on AIDS. A special focus of the Chi Heng in the past couple of years has been the situation in Henan province where large numbers of people became infected through giving and receiving blood in a scam that lacked any measure of hygiene. Chi Heng's work has been particularly with the AIDS orphans in this province, with programmes to help them, and campaigns inside and outside China drawing attention to the problem, in the face of official attempts to hide the issue. Chi Heng also tries to work on other issues, including MSM and HIV/AIDS within China - something rarely addressed by other organizations. Chung himself has been active on AIDS issues for many years. Since he returned to Hong Kong from the United States in 1995, he has worked with various groups, including for a few years as a volunteer with the Hong Kong AIDS Foundation. In recent years he has been on the Board of the NGO AIDS Concern (also as their Chair), and is on some sub-committees dealing with aspects of HIV/AIDS of Hong Kong's Department of Health.