Congressman Chris Smith and human rights activists addressed China’s brutal women rights record at a Monday press conference marking the 100th Anniversary of International Women’s Day.

    Speakers, including an ex-political prisoner and a Tiananmen Square massacre survivor, will appeal to the United Nations to end its complicity in coercive population control and defend women against violence of the one-child policy. 

    "As we mark the 100th International Women’s Day tomorrow, we appeal to the United Nations to end its complicity in coercive population control and defend women and children from forced abortion and forced sterilization in China – the worst gender crime in the world today, and, in scale, certainly the most massive," Smith said. "We direct our appeal to the United Nations itself, to Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, to all UN agencies – especially the UNFPA: pay attention to the UN treaty bodies, which have recognized the Chinese government’s barbaric violence and coercion against women – and stop supporting, or protecting by your silence, or passing over lightly, these terrible crimes." Click here for Smith's statement.

    Smith (NJ-04), longtime human rights advocate in Congress, chairman of the House Human Rights Subcommittee, chairman of the Helsinki Commission, and Executive Committee Member of the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission (TLHRC) was joined by human rights leaders: Chai Ling, former student leader at Tiananmen Square, currently President, All Girls Allowed; Harry Wu, former political prisoner, currently President, Laogai Research Foundation; Reggie Littlejohn, President, Women’s Rights Without Frontiers.