Citing a 2002 case in New Jersey as an example of the many instances where Russian women have been trafficked to the U.S., Congressman Chris Smith (R-NJ) today encouraged deputies of the Duma to build on their laws to combat human trafficking by adding more protections for victims during a meeting in the Great Hall of the Moscow Duma. Read more

U.S. Rep. Chris Smith (NJ-04) today announced that the Inspector General of the Department of Defense (DOD) will begin an investigation—as requested by Smith—into the Navy’s proposal to open up military housing at Naval Weapons Station Earle in Monmouth County to the general public. Read more

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Mr. Chairman, someday future generations of Americans will look back on us and wonder how and why such a rich and seemingly enlightened society, so blessed and endowed with the capacity to protect and enhance vulnerable human life, could have instead so aggressively promoted death to children by abortion. They will note that we prided ourselves on our human rights rhetoric and record, while precluding virtually all protection to the most persecuted minority in the world ... Read more

U.S. Rep. Chris Smith (NJ-04), co-chairman of the Bipartisan Pro-Life Caucus, today issued the following statement praising President George W. Bush for vetoing S. 5, a bill to allow federal funding for embryo-destroying stem cell research and for expanding the federal government’s commitment to effective, ethical stem cell research: Read more

A resolution authored by U.S. Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ) that calls on Russian President Vladimir Putin to step-up efforts to investigate a decade-long string of mysterious murders of journalists in Russia was overwhelmingly approved by the U.S. House of Representatives today. Read more

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. I thank the gentlewoman for yielding. Mr. Speaker, having personally visited Uganda in April 2006, I chaired a hearing on the endangered children of northern Uganda for the Subcommittee on Africa, Global Human Rights and International Operations. We heard from a number of witnesses and we raised it and continue to raise it with the administration. But one of our witnesses was a particularly noteworthy person, Grace Akallo. Grace is, or was, a child soldier, an abducted ... Read more

The State Department yesterday added seven countries, including four Arab allies, to its list of worst offenders in failing to suppress human trafficking and forced labor, which it called "a modern day form of slavery." Read more

U.S. Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ), the author of the nation’s historic Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000 and two subsequent expansions of the law, today warned that the US State Department’s annual report on human trafficking reveals a “creeping complacency that must be nipped in the bud since the thugs who traffic in human beings never grow tired of exploiting women and children for profit, they have to be hunted down and prosecuted.” Read more

U.S. Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ) called on governments around the world—including the U.S.—to expand Holocaust education and renew their commitments to eradicating anti-Semitism in the remarks he delivered at the closing session of an anti-Semitism conference in Bucharest, Romania this weekend. Read more

On behalf of the United States delegation, I would like to thank our Romanian hosts and you, the ministers, ambassadors, NGOs and my fellow delegates for engaging in a discussion of how to combat anti-Semitism and other forms of intolerance in the OSCE. Let me also commend the Romanian Foreign Minister, Mr. Adrian Cioroianu for proposing to host a regional anti-Semitism meeting. That is a magnificent gesture from Romania. Read more