Issues

The Committee is focused on standing up for human rights and U.S. values around the world, and shedding a light on serial human rights abusers.

The Full Committee and Subcommittees have held numerous hearing examining human rights violations around the world, from violence against journalists in Russia and former Soviet Republics, to political prisons in Cuba, to women's rights in the Middle East, to gulags in North Korea, to human rights in Vietnam, to the status of democracy in Nicaragua, and beyond.  Members have also worked to enhance U.S. efforts to promote democratic institution building, religious freedom, and anti-trafficking, and have held oversight hearings on the State Department’s International Religious Freedom Report, and Trafficking in Persons Report.

The Committee has also passed legislation to enhance U.S. efforts against the “modern day slavery” of human trafficking, to de-fund a UN organization complicit in China’s policies of forced abortions and sterilization, and to support human rights in North Korea.