The House Committee on the Judiciary – the fourth and final committee of jurisdiction – today passed Rep. Chris Smith’s (R-NJ) Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act of 2005 (HR 972), legislation that strengthens the nation’s current trafficking law (also authored by Smith) and authorizes new funds for investigation and prosecution of domestic trafficking within the United States. Read more

The House of Representatives today passed to legislation authored by Representative Chris Smith (R-NJ) – Chairman of the committee that oversees human rights – that provides $90 million in assistance to torture victims around the world over the next two years, including 400,000 survivors in the United States. HR 2017, the Torture Victims Relief Reauthorization Act of 2005 provides $75 million in grants for rehabilitation services to assist victims of torture in foreign and domestic treatment centers and other torture relief assistance. Read more

U.S. Representative Chris Smith (R-NJ) – Chairman of the House Subcommittee on Global Human Rights, Africa and International Operations – stressed that Vietnam’s accession to the World Trade Organization (WTO) must be linked with an improvement in its sub par human rights record. Smith returned from Vietnam this morning after leading a human rights mission during which he met with government officials, religious leaders and the relatives of political prisoners to discuss religious freedom, human rights and trafficking. Smith also met with Vietnamese and US military officials from the Joint Personnel Accounting Command (JPAC) to discuss ongoing problems in the unresolved MIA cases from the Vietnam War. Read more

Vietnam's accession to the World Trade Organisation should be linked to it improving its human rights record, a US Congressman has said, even though Washington has steered clear of making such a tie. Read more

The US Congress will keep a close eye on Vietnam to ensure that the communist country fulfills its pledges to expand religious freedoms, US lawmaker Christopher Smith said here. Read more

New Jersey Rep. Chris Smith said Thursday that the Vietnamese government should be more forthcoming in providing the United States with better information on American soldiers listed as missing in action during the Vietnam War. Read more

U.S. Representative Chris Smith (R-NJ) – Chairman of the House Subcommittee on Global Human Rights, Africa and International Operations – is leading a Congressional Delegation that arrived in Vietnam this morning for four days of meetings with government officials, religious leaders and the relatives of political prisoners to discuss religious freedom, human rights and trafficking. Smith is the author of a landmark human trafficking law, and is currently sponsoring the reauthorization of that law in a strengthened version. Smith will also meet with Vietnamese and US Personnel Accounting Command to discuss ongoing problems in the unresolved MIA cases from the Vietnam War. Read more

U.S. Representative Chris Smith’s (R-NJ), Co-Chairman of the US Helsinki Commission, today introduced legislation urging Romania to reform its adoption policies which have prevented thousands of children from being placed in permanent loving families in the United States and Western Europe. More than 200 Americans had pending adoption applications when the new law prohibiting inter-country adoptions took affect. Smith has conducted a hearing on the effect of the law and the dire situation for Romania’s abandoned children. Read more

U.S. Attorney Christopher J. Christie (Newark) today announced that the "enforcer" of a human trafficking ring that smuggled young Honduran women into the United States and forced them to work at three Hudson County bars pleaded guilty today to her role which violated of the Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000, which was authored by Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ). Read more

U.S. Representative Chris Smith’s (R-NJ) Subcommittee on Africa, Global Human Rights and International Relations today approved a resolution he introduced calling on Russia to fully protect the freedoms of all religious communities as is required under its constitution and international commitments. Read more