Two Mauritanians have been arrested for allegedly forcing two children to work as slaves — the first suspects to face prosecution for a practice that many in this African country consider part of the culture, authorities said Oct. 31. The mother of the children — a 16-year-old girl and 14-year-old boy — said she had been seeking their release since she fled captivity herself more than 10 years ago. Although slavery has been banned in Mauritania since 1981, it was not established as a crime punishable by prison time until August. Slaveholders now face up to 10 years in prison and fines. (AP)
Buddhist monks in Myanmar staged a protest march on Oct. 31, their first since soldiers crushed a pro-democracy uprising a month ago, as U.N. special envoy Ibrahim Gambari prepared a return visit to the former Burma. A Yangon-based Asian diplomat said Gambari, who first visited shortly after the army crackdown, would arrive on Nov. 3 on a second mission to coax the generals into talks with detained opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi. Meanwhile, facing a military staffing crisis, the Burmese government is forcibly recruiting many children, some as young as age 10, into its armed forces, Human Rights Watch said in a report released Oct. 31. (Reuters)
An alarming rise in birth defects was acknowledged by China this week, amid concern that heavy pollution is damaging the country's children. Babies born with conditions such as cleft palates and extra fingers and toes account for up to 6 percent of births each year, according to statistics published Oct. 29. And the number of babies born with disabilities has increased by 40 percent since 2001 — a period that has coincided with China's meteoric economic growth — to between two and three million a year. (The Australian)
Vietnam's preference for boys over girls is further tipping the balance between the sexes in Asia, already skewed by a strong bias for boys among Chinese and Indians. The trend could lead to increased trafficking of women and social unrest, a U.N. report says. Vietnam is now positioned where China was a decade ago, logging about 110 boys born to every 100 girls in a country where technology is readily available to determine the sex of a fetus and where abortion is legal, according to research released this week by the U.N. Population Fund. The sex ratio at birth generally should equal about 105 boys to 100 girls, according to the report. (UN News)
Hundreds of citizens of Sakeb, 40km north of Jordan's capital city Amman, have been hospitalized with fever, diarrhea and vomiting, blamed on polluted water by the locals while officials insist the real cause is food poisoning. The outbreak began on Oct. 28, with 400 people, including children and the elderly, seeking treatment at the public hospital in the Roman city of Jerash, near Sakeb. Most of the patients were discharged after receiving proper treatment, said Yousef Qoqazeh, the hospital director. (Reuters)
