WASHINGTON, D.C. - Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ) today praised President Bush and Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice for their commitment to women and children following their announcement that the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) had again failed to meet the human rights conditions necessary to receive $34 million funding.     

“UNFPA is guilty of shamelessly supporting and whitewashing terrible crimes against humanity, and the United States will have no part in subsidizing them,” said Smith, who has fought on behalf of global human rights since being elected to Congress. 

“Our President and our country are standing with the oppressed by refusing to cooperate with their oppressor.  The United States will not fund the brutal and oppressive Chinese government’s lapdogs.

“By redirecting this money to groups that work to expand human rights in contrast to UNFPA, the United States provides hope to oppressed women everywhere with the promise that the United States will not subsidize those who engage in forced abortion and other coercive population control programs.

“If only UNFPA would lobby the Chinese government to prohibit forced abortion as aggressively as they lobby the United States to overturn the law against coercion, there would be less suffering in China right now.  The international community should be appalled that UNFPA spends more time and energy demonizing the US for providing funding to other organizations than it does in criticizing the murderous Chinese population control program.

“Once again, I call on UNFPA to immediately stop supporting, defending and whitewashing the coercive population control program in China.  It is long past time for UNFPA to sever its ties with China’s one-child-per-couple family planning program that relies on forced abortion, involuntary sterilization and heavy economic penalties on women to achieve its brutal goals.  Other countries need to hold UNFPA and the Chinese population control program accountable at The Hague for crimes against humanity.” 

For additional information about Representative Chris Smith and his continued fight for global human rights, please visit http://www.house.gov/chrissmith.