She was active in the struggle for women's rights in the Caribbean and the movement for Jamaican national independence, as well as working in Latin America, Eastern and Western Europe and Africa.
[1] In 1976, she was a founding member in Jamaica of the Committee of Women for Progress, championing such issues as maternity leave and equal pay.
[4] Alongside Trevor Munroe and others, she was a founder-member of the Workers Party of Jamaica (WPJ) and, as its international secretary, served on the editorial board of World Marxist Review, which was based in Prague, Czechoslovakia; as a consequence she travelled throughout Europe, while also building strong connections in South Africa.
[1] In Jamaica, she campaigned against the 1983 US invasion of Grenada, and in 1984 invited English barrister Anthony Gifford to speak to a human rights committee she set up.
"[5] In 1988, Karia also published her second collection, Before They Can Speak of Flowers: Word Rhythms, which had a foreword by Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o and an introduction by Benjamin Zephaniah.