Chris Smith

The Gujarat law... requires permission to be sought before any religious conversion.

Our job is done, as the evidence I've given today shows.

I think there has been a change of atmosphere but not yet a change of system.

For a lot of Americans and policy makers it's like Burma is off the list of anything that we need to be looking at.

I hope the United States will really put pressure on the incoming President to tackle these issues.

I have to conclude very sadly that President Yudhoyono is neither a force nor particularly moderate.

One of the biggest takeaways, however, was that the Catholic bishop was working very closely with the imams in Jos.

It's my belief that we need a corresponding escalation of policies with all of our allies and within all of our strategic relationships in order to combat this worldwide and systemic persecution.

Late last year, Keith Ellison and I introduced a resolution calling for the repeal of the anti-conversion laws in India.

So today we call on all of the good people of the world to join us, speak loudly and aggressively against this evil so that too can be defeated and fall into, as Ronald Reagan said, the ash heap of history.

It would be unconscionable for the Obama administration not to be insisting on human rights conditionality with a country that has already shown that they want economic benefits sans linkage to human rights conditions.

I think the very serious human rights issues and particularly religious freedom affecting Christians and affecting other religious communities in Vietnam should absolutely be looked at by the United States.

Today's focus on anti-Christian persecution is not meant to minimize the suffering of other religious minorities who are imprisoned or killed for their beliefs.

There is a dangerous and, I would suggest, a frightening phenomenon occurring globally in the persecution of Christians.

I just would note parenthetically that I chaired my first hearing when I became chairman of the subcommittee that monitors human rights back in the mid-1990s when we recognized that there was an explosion of persecution, harassment, and…

I was in the Ukraine last year. I was in Kyiv.

I would encourage you all to try to form those partnerships.

I would respectfully suggest nothing sharpens the mind of a corporation or an individual more than a deadline.

Is any of that changing? I know that you have personally, and your organization has continually trained hotel individuals to spot trafficking at the front desk, by the concierge, everyone else in-between. And I am wondering if there is…

We do plan on a series of follow-up hearings, Brazil will be one of those.

Thank you so very much, Ms. Smolenski.

If you would, with respect, ask U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder if he would really initiate an effort to crack down on Twitter, Backpage, Craigslist and these other social media that are a conduit for this terrible exploitation of women.

It is our moral obligation and our legislative duty to ensure that advertisements of child sex trafficking, like Backpage and others, are not allowed to operate and claim yet another victim.

The efforts of public officials to raise awareness of human trafficking are critical to combating this reprehensible crime.

As a matter of fact, many of them are already there. Sadly, but almost certainly, they are bringing with them sexually exploited trafficking victims.