Speaker. as cochair of the congressional caucus for womens Issues and ranking Republican on the Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on International Operations. I am introducing two very important bills pertaining to the protection of women worldwide. My first bill addresses womens human rights. while the second focuses on the special needs of refugee women and children. Until recently. both within the foreign policy establishment and the private nonprofit sector. the human rights community has failed to recognize the extent to which human rights abuses are targeted at women worldwide. Too often. such abuses are excused as social or cultural problems not directly attributable to States and therefore. not relevant to the conduct of StatetoState relations. However. recent research and documentation indicate otherwise. Violence against women and sex discrimination that is sponsored or condoned by States have reached epidemic proportions around the world. Abuses may take genderspecific forms such as rape. may be motivated by the gender of the victim such as the murder of womens rights activists. or may happen to women when they are rendered vulnerable by surrounding circumstances such as refugee women. Whether considered from the point of view of numbers of victims or the severity of abuses. violations of womens human rights should be a major concern of U.S. foreign policy. Yet womens human rights continue to be marginalized in the development and Implementation of U.S. foreign policy. even within the specific context of U.S. human rights policy.