Some 30 million people are enslaved worldwide, trafficked into brothels, forced into manual labor, victims of debt bondage or even born into servitude, a global index on modern slavery showed on Thursday.

Almost half are in India, where slavery ranges from bonded labor in quarries and kilns to commercial sex exploitation, although the scourge exists in all 162 countries surveyed by Walk Free, an Australian-based rights group.

Its estimate of 29.8 million slaves worldwide is higher than other attempts to quantify modern slavery. The International Labour Organisation estimates that almost 21 million people are victims of forced labour.

“Today some people are still being born into hereditary slavery, a staggering but harsh reality, particularly in parts of West Africa and South Asia,” the report said.

“Other victims are captured or kidnapped before being sold or kept for exploitation, whether through marriage, unpaid labour on fishing boats, or as domestic workers. Others are tricked and lured into situations they cannot escape, with false promises of a good job or an education.”

The Global Slavery Index 2013 defines slavery as the possession or control of people to deny freedom and exploit them for profit or sex, usually through violence, coercion or deception. The definition includes indentured servitude, forced marriage and the abduction of children to serve in wars.

According to the index, 10 countries alone account for three quarters of the worlds slaves.

After India, China has the most with 2.9 million, followed by Pakistan 2.1 million, Nigeria 701,000, Ethiopia 651,000, Russia 516,000, Thailand 473,000, Democratic Republic of Congo 462,000, Myanmar 384,000 and Bangladesh 343,000.

The index also ranks nations by prevalence of slavery per head of population. By this measure, Mauritania is worst, with almost 4 percent of its 3.8 million people enslaved. Estimates by other organizations put the level at up to 20 percent.

Chattel slavery is common in Mauritania, meaning that slave status is passed down through generations. “Owners” buy, sell, rent out or give away their slaves as gifts.

After Mauritania, slavery is most prevalent by population in Haiti, where a system of child labour known as “restavek” encourages poor families to send their children to wealthier acquaintances, where many end up exploited and abused.

Pakistan, India, Nepal, Moldova, Benin, Ivory Coast, Gambia and Gabon have the next highest prevalence rates.

At the other end of the scale, Iceland has the lowest estimated prevalence with fewer than 100 slaves.

Thirty million people are slaves, half in India: survey – Yahoo News Canada

A lot of schools spend countless hours trying to stop bullying. But some question if they are sending the right message.

It started as a simple look at bullying. University of Texas at Arlington criminologist Seokjin Jeong analyzed data collected from 7,000 students from all 50 states.

He thought the results would be predictable and would show that anti-bullying programs curb bullying. Instead — he found the opposite.

Jeong said it was, “A very disappointing and a very surprising thing. Our anti-bullying programs, either intervention or prevention does not work.”

The study concluded that students at schools with anti-bullying programs might actually be more likely to become a victim of bullying. It also found that students at schools with no bullying programs were less likely to become victims.

The results were stunning for Jeong. “Usually people expect an anti-bullying program to have some impact — some positive impact.”

The student videos used in many campaigns show examples of bullying and how to intervene. But Jeong says they may actually teach students different bullying techniques — and even educate about new ways to bully through social media and texting.

Jeong said students with ill intentions “…are able to learn, there are new techniques [and gain] new skills.” He says students might see examples in videos and then want to try it.

Are Anti-Bullying Programs Having An Opposite Effect? « CBS Dallas / Fort Worth

It’s long been known that America’s school kids haven’t measured well compared with international peers. Now, there’s a new twist: Adults don’t either.

In math, reading and problem-solving using technology – all skills considered critical for global competitiveness and economic strength – American adults scored below the international average on a global test, according to results released Tuesday.

Adults in Japan, Canada, Australia, Finland and multiple other countries scored significantly higher than the United States in all three areas on the test. Beyond basic reading and math, respondents were tested on activities such as calculating mileage reimbursement due to a salesman, sorting email and comparing food expiration dates on grocery store tags.

Not only did Americans score poorly compared to many international competitors, the findings reinforced just how large the gap is between the nation’s high- and low-skilled workers and how hard it is to move ahead when your parents haven’t.

In both reading and math, for example, those with college-educated parents did better than those whose parents did not complete high school.

The study, called the Program for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies, found that it was easier on average to overcome this and other barriers to literacy overseas than in the United States.

US adults are dumber than the average human | New York Post

A medical test being developed by Kuwait will be used to detect homosexuals and prevent them from entering the country – or any of the Gulf Cooperation Countries GCC, according to a Kuwaiti government official.

GCC member countries – Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, Oman, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates – already deem homosexual acts unlawful.

This controversial stance is being toughened, according to Yousouf Mindkar, the director of public health at the Kuwaiti health ministry.

He told Kuwait newspaper Al Rai: ‘Health centres conduct the routine medical check to assess the health of the expatriates when they come into the GCC countries. However, we will take stricter measures that will help us detect gays who will be then barred from entering Kuwait or any of the GCC member states.’

Gulf states to introduce medical testing on travellers to detect gay people and stop them from entering the country | Mail Online

Millionaire venture capitalist Wang Gongquan was scheduled to speak Saturday at a cafe that doubles as an incubator for Internet start-ups on the subject of “civic spirit and entrepreneur’s duty.”

But on Friday police apprehended Wang in what appears to be a move to silence a successful businessman known for speaking out on social and political issues.

The detainment is the latest in a string of arrests and detentions in a campaign to control speech on the Internet, with a special focus on celebrity, liberal-minded commentators whose postings are read by millions of followers.

This week, the government set out new rules to jail Internet users for spreading “online rumors.” Since August the campaign has detained hundreds of Internet users for days, and shuttered more than 100 “illegal” news websites run by citizen journalists, reported Human Rights Watch.

The arrest comes as China’s coastal city of Dalian hosts the “Summer Davos,” an annual spin-off of the Swiss winter conference where Communist Party leaders and Chinese and foreign business people discuss the ever-important Chinese economy.

Wang’s plight was a reminder that China’s embrace of capitalism and rise to global economic eminence has not softened the party’s intolerance of domestic dissent nor eased its suspicions about civil society.

Wang, 52, is a prominent and outspoken businessman who has a wide following on social media networks in China. He disagreed with fellow businessmen who said it was unwise for entrepreneurs to get involved in politics, saying it was their duty to speak up.

He was taken by police from his Beijing home, according to family friends including Teng Biao, a legal activist. The summons document, posted by friends online, says he is suspected of “assembling a crowd to disrupt order in a public place”.

The charge is the same used in July to detain and formally arrest Xu Zhiyong, an activist friend of Wang whom Wang has campaigned to release. Xu co-founded the New Citizens’ Movement in 2011, an informal group that has lobbied for equal rights to education and for officials to disclose their personal assets to support the government’s fight against corruption.

Dozens of activists linked to the movement have been detained in recent months.

“Wang was targeted as part of the crackdown on the New Citizens’ Movement. You can’t organize something like the New Citizens’ Movement in China, no matter how moderate it is,” said Nicholas Bequelin, a senior researcher for Human Rights Watch, based in Hong Kong.

Chinese police “want to pull apart the New Citizens’ Movement, to understand how it works and prevent the future emergence of similar platforms,” he said.

Under Communist Party leader Xi Jinping, the new leadership is engaged in a comprehensive and far-reaching effort to strengthen the party and party rule, including lowering the threshold of tolerated dissent, Bequelin said.

“These measures will have a chilling effect in the short term, both in the real and virtual world,” he said. “But the only way to reduce social tensions is to have a credible, trusted legal system.

“The gap between state discourse and public opinion has never been as wide as it is today, it’s a complete disconnect,” Bequelin said.

China intensifies internet crackdown – FT.com

Official figures from India’s National Crime Records Bureau reveal that 8,233 young women, many of them new brides, were killed in so-called dowry deaths in 2012. The report comes amid growing concern over the level of violence against women following the Delhi gang rape case last December.

The number of deaths is marginally less than in 2011, but reflects a broader increase in gender violence. While dowry deaths fell slightly from 8618 to 8233, the number of cases of cruelty committed by husbands and their relatives increased significantly from 99,135 in 2011 to 106,527 last year. Many of the cruelty cases are believed to be dowry-related and many dowry killings are preceded by cruelty by the husband and in-laws.

Although the payment of dowries for marriage is illegal in India, they remain widespread across caste, class and educational divides. In recent years demands have become more insistent and expensive.

One of the dowry deaths last year was Pravartika Gupta, who was burned to death in her bedroom as she slept with her one-year-old daughter. She had been threatened by her in-laws because her family could not afford to speed up their schedule of payments. They had agreed to pay £15,000 in cash and buy a Honda City car for their son-in-laws parents. The in-laws had suddenly demanded that Pravartika’s family also buy them an apartment.

According to the Bureaus latest figures, charges were brought in 94 per cent of the 8,233 dowry death cases, but the conviction rate was just 32 per cent. In cruelty cases, the conviction rate is only 15 per cent.

Woman killed over dowry every hour in India – Telegraph

In a Pew Research Center survey held across 11 different nationalities with large Muslim populations, Muslim respondents were asked about their views on “Islamic extremism.”

The results showed uniform opposition to such ideologies, as well as widespread rejection of suicide bombings – in all but one set of respondents.

In one question, those interviewed were asked whether they believed that suicide bombings can ever be justified, and were asked to select from one of the following options: “Never,” “Rarely,” “Sometimes,” “Often” and “Don’t Know.”

A sizable majority (62%) of respondents from the “Palestinian Territories” (referring to Palestinian Authority-controlled Judea and Samaria, and Hamas-run Gaza) answered that suicide bombings were at least sometimes justified – nearly double that of the second-largest body of support (Lebanon, 33%).

Muslims from the “Palestinian Territories” were also way ahead of the pack when it came to the percentage of respondents who felt that suicide bombings were “often” justified: a whopping 37%. In comparison, the next highest percentage of respondents who answered the same was in Senegal, at a mere 11%.

The country with the greatest opposition to suicide bombings was Pakistan, where Al Qaeda and Taliban coordinated attacks have almost exclusively targeted other Muslims, from members of minority sects to political opponents.

Majority of PA Muslims Support Suicide Bombings – Middle East – News – Israel National News

A young girl in Yemen died after having sexual relations with a 40-year-old man who became her husband in an arranged marriage, according to media reports.

The 8-year-old was identified as “Rawan” and died from torn genitals and severe bleeding in the northwest city of Hardh, Gulf News reported, citing Yemen media accounts.

The child lived in a tribal area that borders Saudi Arabia. Human rights organizations have called for the arrest of the husband, the news site Al Bawaba said.

Yemen has often been criticized for allowing girls to be forced into arranged marriages.

Human Rights Watch reports that 14% of girls in Yemen are married before age 15, with 82% married before they are 18.

The country passed a law in 2009 setting the minimum age for marriage at 17. It was later repealed after conservative lawmakers said it went against Islamic teachings.

Girl, 8, dies from internal injuries after wedding night in Yemen – NY Daily News