Puja Kapai

Puja Kapai is an Associate Professor of Law at the University of Hong Kong where she serves as the Convenor of the Women's Studies Research Centre and formerly, Director of the Centre for Comparative and Public Law. Her research expertise lies in international human rights law, in particular, equality law and minority rights. She has also led numerous research projects and served as consultant on various aspects of social justice, including the rights of migrant workers, ethnic minority children, children with special education needs and domestic violence. She has published widely on these themes, including a comparative study on children’s rights education funded by the Hong Kong Committee for UNICEF, a study on the experiences and help seeking behaviours of ethnic minority and immigrant victims of domestic violence and a comprehensive report on the Status of Ethnic Minorities in Hong Kong 1997-2014 (which was presented to the then Chief Secretary and now Chief Executive of the HKSAR Administration, Mrs. Carrie Lam). This work has proved groundbreaking and several recommendations made in her reports have recently been implemented at the policy level. She has regularly appeared before the Hong Kong Legislative Council to present on issues impacting ethnic minorities, women and children as well as before the United Nations treaty-monitoring bodies, including the Human Rights Committee and the Children’s Rights Committee in 2013 and the Committee for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination in 2018 in their hearings on Hong Kong. Puja served as Expert Consultant to the Due Diligence Project on Violence Against Women for the Asia Pacific Region which was presented to the Special Rapporteur on Violence Against Women. She presently serves as a Founding member of the Every Woman Every Where initiative at the Carr Centre for Human Rights, Harvard Kennedy School of Government as well as on the board of various NGOs related to her fields of expertise.​