Poisoned Lottery Winner's Kin Were Suspicious

Urooj Khan had just brought home his $425,000 lottery check when he unexpectedly died the following day. Now, certain members of Khan's family are speaking publicly about the mystery -- and his nephew told ABC News they knew something was not right.

"He was a healthy guy, you know?" said the nephew, Minhaj Khan. "He worked so hard. He was always going about his business and, the thing is: After he won the lottery and the next day later he passes away -- it's awkward. It raises some eyebrows."

The medical examiner initially ruled Urooj Khan, 46, an immigrant from India who owned dry-cleaning businesses in Chicago, died July 20, 2012, of natural causes. But after a family member demanded more tests, authorities in November found a lethal amount of cyanide in his blood, turning the case into a homicide investigation.

"When we found out there was cyanide in his blood after the extensive toxicology reports, we had to believe that ... somebody had to kill him," Minhaj Khan said. "It had to happen, because where can you get cyanide?"

In Photos: Biggest Lotto Jackpot Winners

Authorities could be one step closer to learning what happened to Urooj Khan. A judge Friday approved an order to exhume his body at Rosehill Cemetery in Chicago as early as Thursday to perform further tests.

Lottery Winner Murdered: Widow Questioned By Police Watch Video

Moments after the court hearing, Urooj Khan's sister, Meraj Khan, remembered her brother as the kind of person who would've shared his jackpot with anyone. Speaking at the Cook County Courthouse, she hoped the exhumation would help the investigation.

"It's very hard because I wanted my brother to rest in peace, but then we have to have justice served," she said, according to ABC News station WLS in Chicago. "So if that's what it takes for him to bring justice and peace, then that's what needs to be done."

Khan reportedly did not have a will. With the investigation moving forward, his family is waging a legal fight against his widow, Shabana Ansari, 32, over more than $1 million, including Urooj Khan's lottery winnings, as well as his business and real estate holdings.

Khan's brother filed a petition Wednesday to a judge asking Citibank to release information about Khan's assets to "ultimately ensure" that [Khan's] minor daughter from a prior marriage "receives her proper share."

Ansari may have tried to cash the jackpot check after Khan's death, according to court documents, which also showed Urooj Khan's family is questioning if the couple was ever even legally married.

Ansari, Urooj Khan's second wife, who still works at the couple's dry cleaning business, has insisted they were married legally.

She has told reporters the night before her husband died, she cooked a traditional Indian meal for him and their family, including Khan's daughter and Ansari's father. Not feeling well, Khan retired early, Ansari told the Chicago Sun-Times, falling asleep in a chair, waking up in agony, then collapsing in the middle of the night. She said she called 911.

"It has been an incredibly hard time," she told ABC News earlier this week. "We went from being the happiest the day we got the check. It was the best sleep I've had. And then the next day, everything was gone.

"I am cooperating with the investigation," Ansari told ABC News. "I want the truth to come out."

Ansari has not been named a suspect, but her attorney, Steven Kozicki, said investigators did question her for more than four hours.

Read More..

Saudi execution: Brutal and illegal?

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• Saudi authorities beheaded Rizana Nafeek, a Sri Lankan woman


• She was convicted of killing a baby of the family employing her as a housemaid


• This was despite Nafeek's claims that the baby died in a choking accident


• Becker says her fate "should spotlight the precarious existence of domestic workers"

Jo Becker is the Children's Rights Advocacy Director for Human Rights Watch and author of 'Campaigning for Justice: Human Rights Advocacy in Practice.' Follow Jo Becker on Twitter.

(CNN) -- Rizana Nafeek was a child herself -- 17 years old, according to her birth certificate -- when a four-month-old baby died in her care in Saudi Arabia. She had migrated from Sri Lanka only weeks earlier to be a domestic worker for a Saudi family.

Although Rizana said the baby died in a choking accident, Saudi courts convicted her of murder and sentenced her to death. On Wednesday, the Saudi government carried out the sentence in a gruesome fashion, by beheading Rizana.

Jo Becker

Read more: Outrage over beheading of Sri Lankan woman by Saudi Arabia

Rizana's case was rife with problems from the beginning. A recruitment agency in Sri Lanka knew she was legally too young to migrate, but she had falsified papers to say she was 23. After the baby died, Rizana gave a confession that she said was made under duress -- she later retracted it. She had no lawyer to defend her until after she was sentenced to death and no competent interpreter during her trial. Her sentence violated international law, which prohibits the death penalty for crimes committed before age 18.

Rizana's fate should arouse international outrage. But it should also spotlight the precarious existence of other domestic workers. At least 1.5 million work in Saudi Arabia alone and more than 50 million -- mainly women and girls -- are employed worldwide according to the International Labour Organization (ILO).

Read more: Indonesian maid escapes execution in Saudi Arabia

Again according to the ILO, the number of domestic workers worldwide has grown by more than 50% since the mid-1990s. Many, like Rizana, seek employment in foreign countries where they may be unfamiliar with the language and legal system and have few rights.

When Rizana traveled to Saudi Arabia, for example, she may not have known that many Saudi employers confiscate domestic workers' passports and confine them inside their home, cutting them off from the outside world and sources of help.

It is unlikely that anyone ever told her about Saudi Arabia's flawed criminal justice system or that while many domestic workers find kind employers who treat them well, others are forced to work for months or even years without pay and subjected to physical or sexual abuse.

Passport photo of Rizana Nafeek

Read more: Saudi woman beheaded for 'witchcraft and sorcery'

Conditions for migrant domestic workers in Saudi Arabia are among some of the worst, but domestic workers in other countries rarely enjoy the same rights as other workers. In a new report this week, the International Labour Organization says that nearly 30% of the world's domestic workers are completely excluded from national labor laws. They typically earn only 40% of the average wage of other workers. Forty-five percent aren't even entitled by law to a weekly day off.

Last year, I interviewed young girls in Morocco who worked 12 hours a day, 7 days a week for a fraction of the minimum wage. One girl began working at age 12 and told me: "I don't mind working, but to be beaten and not to have enough food, this is the hardest part."

Many governments have finally begun to recognize the risks and exploitation domestic workers face. During 2012, dozens of countries took action to strengthen protections for domestic workers. Thailand, and Singapore approved measures to give domestic workers a weekly day off, while Venezuela and the Philippines adopted broad laws for domestic workers ensuring a minimum wage, paid holidays, and limits to their working hours. Brazil is amending its constitution to state that domestic workers have all the same rights as other workers. Bahrain codified access to mediation of labor disputes.

Read more: Convicted killer beheaded, put on display in Saudi Arabia

Perhaps most significantly, eight countries acted in 2012 to ratify -- and therefore be legally bound by -- the Domestic Workers Convention, with more poised to follow suit this year. The convention is a groundbreaking treaty adopted in 2011 to guarantee domestic workers the same protections available to other workers, including weekly days off, effective complaints procedures and protection from violence.

The Convention also has specific protections for domestic workers under the age of 18 and provisions for regulating and monitoring recruitment agencies. All governments should ratify the convention.

Many reforms are needed to prevent another tragic case like that of Rizana Nafeek. The obvious one is for Saudi Arabia to stop its use of the death penalty and end its outlier status as one of only three countries worldwide to execute people for crimes committed while a child.

Labor reforms are also critically important. They may have prevented the recruitment of a 17 year old for migration abroad in the first place. And they can protect millions of other domestic workers who labor with precariously few guarantees for their safety and rights.

Read more: Malala, others on front lines in fight for women

The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Jo Becker.

Read More..

WoW! fund to be enhanced

SINGAPORE: The Manpower Ministry will be enhancing the Work-Life Works! (WoW!) fund this year.

Channel NewsAsia understands that the review of the fund is in its final stages.

It was set up in 2004 to encourage employers to better support their employees' need for work-life balance.

A spokesperson from the ministry told Channel NewsAsia that details of the enhancement may come together with the announcement of an improved Marriage and Parenthood package expected this month.

Good work-life balance is a key factor to help singles get married and couples have babies.

A recent survey on marriage and parenthood suggests that companies can play a part in improving the work environment.

Associate Professor Paulin Straughan, a sociologist from the National University of Singapore, believes it is important to have flexibility in the workplace.

She said: "I think if we are able to normalise flexibility in the workplace, several good things will happen. If you have an employer who looks after your needs so well, you are very unlikely to jump ship - even if times are no good and bonuses are not so high."

Flexible work arrangements include telecommuting and flexi-time, and the government provides companies incentives like the WoW! fund to introduce such work-life strategies.

Giving an update, the Manpower Ministry said so far, over 850 companies have benefited from the WoW! fund and a total of about S$15 million has been disbursed.

However, the push to improve work-life balance through flexible arrangements is progressing slowly.

A report from the MOM last month showed just over four in 10 employers said they provide such arrangements - up from 38 per cent in 2011.

Associate Professor Straughan stressed the need to encourage more trust between employers and employees, "so that we can work very hard when we are at work, finish our job, our responsibilities for the day and then come home and work hard at home and enjoy our family life".

Companies, especially the small and medium enterprises, realise this. They believe it is necessary to embrace work-life strategies as part of the company's culture.

Chan Chong Beng, president of the Association of Small and Medium Enterprises, said: "In the old days, SME owners never feel comfortable if they don't see their staff but people are accepting that this is the next phase of working environment.

"Work-life balance or flexi-work should be part and parcel of the nature of employment as we move along. First, there is a labour shortage. Secondly, SMEs will have to find ways to compete and retain workers. Otherwise, they will lose out."

The Manpower Ministry is also exploring the possibility of extending the Flexi-works! scheme which expired at the end of last month.

The scheme is aimed at helping companies recruit economically inactive individuals who want to re-enter the workforce. It supports the costs of implementing flexible work arrangements.

- CNA/ir

Read More..

Why death comes sooner in America

A report finds that Americans have "shorter lives and poorer health," coming in last in key areas behind 16 other rich nations

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• Aaron Carroll: New study shows U.S. health and lifespan worst of 17 rich countries


• He says it's because of personal choices, systemic woes. Poverty high, health care uneven


• He says this particularly affects youth, plagued by sickness, violence, high mortality


• Carroll: Don't make it political. The richest country in the world must improve public health

Editor's note: Dr. Aaron E. Carroll is an associate professor of pediatrics at the Indiana University School of Medicine and the director of the university's Center for Health Policy and Professionalism Research. He blogs about health policy at The Incidental Economist and tweets at @aaronecarroll.

(CNN) -- A just-released report from the Institute of Medicine and National Research Council is making news by clearly illustrating that Americans have "shorter lives and poorer health." This is somewhat shocking, given how much we spend on health care each year — more than any of the 16 other rich countries surveyed in the study. What's even more upsetting is that this report focused quite heavily on people who are young. In the United States, even that group fared poorly.

Aaron Carroll

Why is this?

Some of the reasons involve choices make at a personal level. We eat too much, abuse drugs too often, wear seat belts too rarely and commit violence against each other to often.

Systemic issues are also to blame. We have higher levels of poverty than comparable countries, and our safety net programs are less capable of catching people when they fall. And too many also have too much trouble accessing the health care system, resulting in inefficient, ineffective and often absent care.

It's far too easy to let these dreadful statistics become obscured in a politically charged argument. Let's avoid that. This report is so stark that it's going to take a concerted effort on the part of the government, the media, the health care system and everyday citizens to turn things around. Our personal choices are bad. Our safety nets are bad. Our health care system is bad. It's all bad. How bad?

When compared with peer countries, the United States was the absolute worst with respect to still births, infant mortality and low birth weight. Some have tried to blame this on "coding" differences. In other words, they will claim that other countries will refuse to define a premature birth as we do, resulting in artificially high numbers in the United States. But when this report recalculated the rates to exclude such births equally in all countries, we still ranked last.

Things don't get better after birth. The chance that a child in the United States will die before age 5 is higher than in any of the other 16 peer countries. Injuries are the most common cause of death, but the United States also has the highest rate of deaths caused by negligence or abuse.

And violence is decidedly an American problem. Homicide is the third most common cause of death in children age 1-4.

From age 5-19, the trend continues. Kids this age in the United States have the worst health ranking of the 17 studied countries. More than one-third of U.S. children age 5-17 are obese or overweight, the highest of any peer country. The adolescent pregnancy rate in the United States is about 3.5 times the average of others. Additionally, the rates of sexually transmitted infections, including syphilis, gonorrhea and chlamydia are the worst compared to peer countries.

Nor are these children exempt from death. Injury deaths are more common in 15- to 19-year-olds in the United States than in any other studied country. Homicide claims the second highest number of lives in 15- to -24-year-olds, and 4 in 5 of those deaths involve guns. Males between the ages of 15 and 19 are five times as likely to die from violence in the United States than in other countries.

Even as young adults, ages 25-34, mortality remains consistently upsetting and preventable. Unintentional injuries remain the No. 1 cause of death. The risk of dying by violence remains seven times higher for males in the United States ages 20-24 than in other countries.

We have to work together to make these numbers better. Some of them can be improved with public health measures. We need to help Americans be less obese, to have fewer accidents and to commit less violence. There are lots of local studies and initiatives that propose ways to fix these things, but our public health system is woefully underfunded, and translating any promising findings to meaningful societal change poses a huge challenge.

We also need to improve our safety nets to help children at the lowest end of the socioeconomic ladder do better, even before they are born. Pregnant women, babies and children suffer from hunger and malnutrition far too often in the richest country in the world. Yet we still debate the merits of the federally funded WIC (Womens, Infants and Children) program, school lunches and food assistance to needy families.

Finally, we need to find a way to improve access to the health care system. The Medicaid program covers one in every three births and one in every three children in the United States, and it's still not enough. As some states balk at expanding Medicaid to cover many of the poorest uninsured, some are still talking about reducing funding to the already stretched program. There's no question that we have the capability, the knowledge and the resources to care for people. It's just a matter of doing it better.

There will be some who deny these results. Others will try to use them for political gain. That would be a mistake. We have to accept these findings and begin to work holistically to improve them. Being last just isn't the American way.

Follow us on Twitter @CNNOpinion.

Join us on Facebook/CNNOpinion.

The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Aaron Carroll.

Read More..

U.S. tells computer users to disable Java software

Updated 9:00 p.m. ET

WASHINGTON The U.S. Department of Homeland Security is advising people to temporarily disable the Java software on their computers to avoid potential hacking attacks.

The recommendation came in an advisory issued late Thursday, following up on concerns raised by computer security experts.

Experts believe hackers have found a flaw in Java's coding that creates an opening for criminal activity and other high-tech mischief.

CNET's Topher Kessler writes:

"The malware has currently been seen attacking Windows, Linux and Unix systems, and while so far has not focused on OS X, may be able to do so given OS X is largely similar to Unix and Java is cross-platform.

Even though the exploit has not been seen in OS X, Apple has taken steps to block it by issuing an update to its built-in XProtect system to block the current version of the Java 7 runtime and require users install an as of yet unreleased version of the Java runtime.

Luckily with the latest versions of Java, users who need to keep it active can change a couple of settings to help secure their systems. Go to the Java Control Panel that is installed along with the runtime, and in the Security section uncheck the option to "Enable Java content in the browser," which will disable the browser plug-in. This will prevent the inadvertent execution of exploits that may be stumbled upon when browsing the Web, and is a recommended setting for most people to do. If you need to see a Java applet on the Web, then you can always temporarily re-enable the plug-in.

The second setting is to increase the security level of the Java runtime, which can also be done in the same Security section of the Java Control Panel. The default security level is Medium, but you can increase this to High or Very High. At the High level, Java will prompt you for approval before running any unsigned Java code, and at the Very High level all Java code will require such approval, regardless of whether or not it is signed."

Java is a widely used technical language that allows computer programmers to write a wide variety of Internet applications and other software programs that can run on just about any computer's operating system.

Oracle Corp. bought Java as part of a $7.3 billion acquisition of the software's creator, Sun Microsystems, in 2010.

Oracle, which is based in Redwood Shores, Calif., had no immediate comment late Friday.

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CDC: Flu Outbreak Could Be Waning

The flu season appears to be waning in some parts of the country, but that doesn't mean it won't make a comeback in the next few weeks, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Five fewer states reported high flu activity levels in the first week of January than the 29 that reported high activity levels in the last week of December, according to the CDC's weekly flu report. This week, 24 states reported high illness levels, 16 reported moderate levels, five reported low levels and one reported minimal levels, suggesting that the flu season peaked in the last week of December.

"It may be decreasing in some areas, but that's hard to predict," CDC Director Dr. Thomas Frieden said in a Friday morning teleconference. "Trends only in the next week or two will show whether we have in fact crossed the peak."

The flu season usually peaks in February or March, not December, said Dr. Jon Abramson, who specializes in pediatric infectious diseases at Wake Forest Baptist Health in North Carolina. He said the season started early with a dominant H3N2 strain, which was last seen a decade ago, in 2002-03. That year, the flu season also ended early.

Click here to see how this flu season stacks up against other years.

Cheryl Evans/The Arizona Republic/AP Photo

Increasing Flu Cases: Best Measures to Ensure Your Family's Health Watch Video

Because of the holiday season, Frieden said the data may have been skewed.

For instance, Connecticut appeared to be having a lighter flu season than other northeastern states at the end of December, but the state said it could have been a result of college winter break. College student health centers account for a large percentage of flu reports in Connecticut, but they've been closed since the fall semester ended, said William Gerrish, a spokesman for the state's department of public health.

The flu season arrived about a month early this year in parts of the South and the East, but it may only just be starting to take hold of states in the West, Frieden said. California is still showing "minimal" flu on the CDC's map, but that doesn't mean it will stay that way.

Click here to read about how flu has little to do with cold weather.

"It's not surprising. Influenza ebbs and flows during the flu season," Frieden said. "The only thing predictable about the flu is that it is unpredictable."

Dr. William Schaffner, chair of preventive medicine at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, Tenn., said he was expecting California's seeming good luck with the flu to be over this week.

"Flu is fickle, we say," Schaffner said. "Influenza can be spotty. It can be more severe in one community than another for reasons incompletely understood."

Early CDC estimates indicate that this year's flu vaccine is 62 percent effective, meaning people who have been vaccinated are 62 percent less likely to need to see a doctor for flu treatment, Frieden said.

Although the shot has been generally believed to be more effective for children than adults, there's not enough data this year to draw conclusions yet.

"The flu vaccine is far from perfect, but it's still by far the best tool we have to prevent flu," Frieden said, adding that most of the 130 million vaccine doses have already been administered. "We're hearing of shortages of the vaccine, so if you haven't been vaccinated and want to be, it's better late than never."

Read More..

Why global labor reforms are vital

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• Saudi authorities beheaded Rizana Nafeek, a Sri Lankan woman


• She was convicted of killing a baby of the family employing her as a housemaid


• This was despite Nafeek's claims that the baby died in a choking accident


• Becker says her fate "should spotlight the precarious existence of domestic workers"

Jo Becker is the Children's Rights Advocacy Director for Human Rights Watch and author of 'Campaigning for Justice: Human Rights Advocacy in Practice.' Follow Jo Becker on Twitter.

(CNN) -- Rizana Nafeek was a child herself -- 17 years old, according to her birth certificate -- when a four-month-old baby died in her care in Saudi Arabia. She had migrated from Sri Lanka only weeks earlier to be a domestic worker for a Saudi family.

Although Rizana said the baby died in a choking accident, Saudi courts convicted her of murder and sentenced her to death. On Wednesday, the Saudi government carried out the sentence in a gruesome fashion, by beheading Rizana.

Jo Becker

Read more: Outrage over beheading of Sri Lankan woman by Saudi Arabia

Rizana's case was rife with problems from the beginning. A recruitment agency in Sri Lanka knew she was legally too young to migrate, but she had falsified papers to say she was 23. After the baby died, Rizana gave a confession that she said was made under duress -- she later retracted it. She had no lawyer to defend her until after she was sentenced to death and no competent interpreter during her trial. Her sentence violated international law, which prohibits the death penalty for crimes committed before age 18.

Rizana's fate should arouse international outrage. But it should also spotlight the precarious existence of other domestic workers. At least 1.5 million work in Saudi Arabia alone and more than 50 million -- mainly women and girls -- are employed worldwide according to the International Labour Organization (ILO).

Read more: Indonesian maid escapes execution in Saudi Arabia

Again according to the ILO, the number of domestic workers worldwide has grown by more than 50% since the mid-1990s. Many, like Rizana, seek employment in foreign countries where they may be unfamiliar with the language and legal system and have few rights.

When Rizana traveled to Saudi Arabia, for example, she may not have known that many Saudi employers confiscate domestic workers' passports and confine them inside their home, cutting them off from the outside world and sources of help.

It is unlikely that anyone ever told her about Saudi Arabia's flawed criminal justice system or that while many domestic workers find kind employers who treat them well, others are forced to work for months or even years without pay and subjected to physical or sexual abuse.

Passport photo of Rizana Nafeek

Read more: Saudi woman beheaded for 'witchcraft and sorcery'

Conditions for migrant domestic workers in Saudi Arabia are among some of the worst, but domestic workers in other countries rarely enjoy the same rights as other workers. In a new report this week, the International Labour Organization says that nearly 30% of the world's domestic workers are completely excluded from national labor laws. They typically earn only 40% of the average wage of other workers. Forty-five percent aren't even entitled by law to a weekly day off.

Last year, I interviewed young girls in Morocco who worked 12 hours a day, 7 days a week for a fraction of the minimum wage. One girl began working at age 12 and told me: "I don't mind working, but to be beaten and not to have enough food, this is the hardest part."

Many governments have finally begun to recognize the risks and exploitation domestic workers face. During 2012, dozens of countries took action to strengthen protections for domestic workers. Thailand, and Singapore approved measures to give domestic workers a weekly day off, while Venezuela and the Philippines adopted broad laws for domestic workers ensuring a minimum wage, paid holidays, and limits to their working hours. Brazil is amending its constitution to state that domestic workers have all the same rights as other workers. Bahrain codified access to mediation of labor disputes.

Read more: Convicted killer beheaded, put on display in Saudi Arabia

Perhaps most significantly, eight countries acted in 2012 to ratify -- and therefore be legally bound by -- the Domestic Workers Convention, with more poised to follow suit this year. The convention is a groundbreaking treaty adopted in 2011 to guarantee domestic workers the same protections available to other workers, including weekly days off, effective complaints procedures and protection from violence.

The Convention also has specific protections for domestic workers under the age of 18 and provisions for regulating and monitoring recruitment agencies. All governments should ratify the convention.

Many reforms are needed to prevent another tragic case like that of Rizana Nafeek. The obvious one is for Saudi Arabia to stop its use of the death penalty and end its outlier status as one of only three countries worldwide to execute people for crimes committed while a child.

Labor reforms are also critically important. They may have prevented the recruitment of a 17 year old for migration abroad in the first place. And they can protect millions of other domestic workers who labor with precariously few guarantees for their safety and rights.

Read more: Malala, others on front lines in fight for women

The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Jo Becker.

Read More..

Malaysia prepares for joint opposition mega-rally

KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia is preparing for a big rally on Saturday - what organisers are calling the People's Uprising rally.

It is the first of its kind, bringing together opposition parties and non-governmental organisations.

Dubbed the KL112, the mega rally this Saturday promises to be a historic event for the country.

The rally venue, Merdeka stadium, is a heritage site and the management has limited its capacity to no more than 30,000, even though organisers are expecting a million people.

Once the stadium reaches its saturation point, the crowd will have to gather outside the stadium at the parking lot as well as the adjacent Victoria field.

The organisers have paid US$30,000 to the management as deposit to use the venue and signed an agreement with the police to gather peacefully.

Rally goers must not bring children or they can be arrested and prosecuted.

Meanwhile, the Education Ministry has warned teachers and students not to participate in the so-called politically motivated rally.

Chief secretary to the government Ali Hamsa also advised civil servants not to be involved in the rally.

Parents were told to discourage their children from attending.

Still, thousands of university and college students have confirmed their attendance.

In fact, they will be going for a pre-rally countdown on Friday evening at Kampong Baru, not too far from here.

On Saturday, they will be joining others at eight main gathering points in the city before making their way to Merdeka stadium for the People's Uprising rally, that is scheduled to go on between 2 and 5pm local time.

- CNA/xq

Read More..

Beheading exposes exploitation

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• Saudi authorities beheaded Rizana Nafeek, a Sri Lankan woman


• She was convicted of killing a baby of the family employing her as a housemaid


• This was despite Nafeek's claims that the baby died in a choking accident


• Becker says her fate "should spotlight the precarious existence of domestic workers"

Jo Becker is the Children's Rights Advocacy Director for Human Rights Watch and author of 'Campaigning for Justice: Human Rights Advocacy in Practice.' Follow Jo Becker on Twitter.

(CNN) -- Rizana Nafeek was a child herself -- 17 years old, according to her birth certificate -- when a four-month-old baby died in her care in Saudi Arabia. She had migrated from Sri Lanka only weeks earlier to be a domestic worker for a Saudi family.

Although Rizana said the baby died in a choking accident, Saudi courts convicted her of murder and sentenced her to death. On Wednesday, the Saudi government carried out the sentence in a gruesome fashion, by beheading Rizana.

Jo Becker

Read more: Outrage over beheading of Sri Lankan woman by Saudi Arabia

Rizana's case was rife with problems from the beginning. A recruitment agency in Sri Lanka knew she was legally too young to migrate, but she had falsified papers to say she was 23. After the baby died, Rizana gave a confession that she said was made under duress -- she later retracted it. She had no lawyer to defend her until after she was sentenced to death and no competent interpreter during her trial. Her sentence violated international law, which prohibits the death penalty for crimes committed before age 18.

Rizana's fate should arouse international outrage. But it should also spotlight the precarious existence of other domestic workers. At least 1.5 million work in Saudi Arabia alone and more than 50 million -- mainly women and girls -- are employed worldwide according to the International Labour Organization (ILO).

Read more: Indonesian maid escapes execution in Saudi Arabia

Again according to the ILO, the number of domestic workers worldwide has grown by more than 50% since the mid-1990s. Many, like Rizana, seek employment in foreign countries where they may be unfamiliar with the language and legal system and have few rights.

When Rizana traveled to Saudi Arabia, for example, she may not have known that many Saudi employers confiscate domestic workers' passports and confine them inside their home, cutting them off from the outside world and sources of help.

It is unlikely that anyone ever told her about Saudi Arabia's flawed criminal justice system or that while many domestic workers find kind employers who treat them well, others are forced to work for months or even years without pay and subjected to physical or sexual abuse.

Passport photo of Rizana Nafeek

Read more: Saudi woman beheaded for 'witchcraft and sorcery'

Conditions for migrant domestic workers in Saudi Arabia are among some of the worst, but domestic workers in other countries rarely enjoy the same rights as other workers. In a new report this week, the International Labour Organization says that nearly 30% of the world's domestic workers are completely excluded from national labor laws. They typically earn only 40% of the average wage of other workers. Forty-five percent aren't even entitled by law to a weekly day off.

Last year, I interviewed young girls in Morocco who worked 12 hours a day, 7 days a week for a fraction of the minimum wage. One girl began working at age 12 and told me: "I don't mind working, but to be beaten and not to have enough food, this is the hardest part."

Many governments have finally begun to recognize the risks and exploitation domestic workers face. During 2012, dozens of countries took action to strengthen protections for domestic workers. Thailand, and Singapore approved measures to give domestic workers a weekly day off, while Venezuela and the Philippines adopted broad laws for domestic workers ensuring a minimum wage, paid holidays, and limits to their working hours. Brazil is amending its constitution to state that domestic workers have all the same rights as other workers. Bahrain codified access to mediation of labor disputes.

Read more: Convicted killer beheaded, put on display in Saudi Arabia

Perhaps most significantly, eight countries acted in 2012 to ratify -- and therefore be legally bound by -- the Domestic Workers Convention, with more poised to follow suit this year. The convention is a groundbreaking treaty adopted in 2011 to guarantee domestic workers the same protections available to other workers, including weekly days off, effective complaints procedures and protection from violence.

The Convention also has specific protections for domestic workers under the age of 18 and provisions for regulating and monitoring recruitment agencies. All governments should ratify the convention.

Many reforms are needed to prevent another tragic case like that of Rizana Nafeek. The obvious one is for Saudi Arabia to stop its use of the death penalty and end its outlier status as one of only three countries worldwide to execute people for crimes committed while a child.

Labor reforms are also critically important. They may have prevented the recruitment of a 17 year old for migration abroad in the first place. And they can protect millions of other domestic workers who labor with precariously few guarantees for their safety and rights.

Read more: Malala, others on front lines in fight for women

The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Jo Becker.

Read More..

Sheriff: High school gunman felt he'd been bullied

TAFT, Calif. Authorities say a teen who fired on classmates and critically wounded one at a rural California high school had planned the attack and targeted students he felt had bullied him for more than a year.

Kern County sheriff Donny Youngblood said at a news conference Thursday night that the 16-year-old used a shotgun that belonged to his brother and went to bed Wednesday night with a plan to shoot two fellow students.

"He believed that the two people he targeted had bullied him, in his mind. Whether that occurred or not, we don't know yet," Youngblood said.

Youngblood added that the suspect came to Taft Union High School with ammunition stuffed in his pockets.

According to Youngblood, surveillance video shows the teen trying to conceal the gun as he nervously enters the building through a side entrance after school had started Thursday morning.

The boy went into a classroom, shot one student, then fired on but missed others before a teacher and another staff member talked him into surrendering, Youngblood told reporters.

Morgan Allredge, 16, calmly described what happened to CBS Los Angeles station KCBS. To see the interview, click on the video at left.

The wounded student was flown to a hospital in Bakersfield and was listed in stable but critical condition. He is also 16, reports CBS Bakersfield, Calif. affiliate KBAK-TV.

When the shots were fired, teacher Ryan Heber tried to get the 28 students out a back door and engaged the shooter in conversation to distract him, Youngblood said.

Some students got out the back door, while some barricaded themselves in a classroom storage closet, KBAK says.

A third and final shotgun blast was directed to the windows of the classroom, KBAK reports.

Campus supervisor Kim Lee Fields responded to a call of shots fired and also began talking to the teen.

"(Heber and Fields) talked him into putting that shotgun down. He in fact told the teacher, "I don't want to shoot you,' and named the person that he wanted to shoot," Youngblood said.

"The heroics of these two people goes without saying. ... They could have just as easily ... (have) tried to get out of the classroom and left students, and they didn't," the sheriff said. "They knew not to let him leave the classroom with that shotgun."

The shooter didn't show up for first period, then interrupted the class.

Youngblood did not release the student's disciplinary record, saying he didn't have it.

The Sheriff's Department did not release the boy's name because he was a juvenile and had yet to be charged.

But many students and community members said they knew the boy and said he was often teased, including Alex Patterson, 18, who went to Taft with the suspect before graduating last year.

"He comes off as the kind of kid who would do something like this," Patterson said. "He talked about it a lot, but nobody thought he would."

Trish Montes, who lived next door to the suspect, said he was "a short guy" and "small" who was teased about his stature by many, including the victim.

"Maybe people will learn not to bully people," Montes said. "I hate to be crappy about it, but that kid was bullying him."

Montes said her son had worked at the school and tutored the boy last year, sometimes walking with him between classes because he felt sorry for him.

"All I ever heard about him was good things from my son," Montes said. "He wasn't Mr. Popularity, but he was a smart kid. It's a shame. My kid said he was like a genius. It's a shame because he could have made something of himself."

Officials said a female student was hospitalized with possible hearing damage because the shotgun was fired close to her ear, and another girl suffered minor injuries during the scramble to flee when she fell over a table.

Officials said there's usually an armed officer on campus, but the person wasn't there because he was snowed in. Taft police officers arrived within 60 seconds of first reports.

The alleged shooter apparently lives close to the school, and neighbors saw him carrying the gun into school and called 911, KBAK says.

Wilhelmina Reum, whose daughter Alexis Singleton is a fourth-grader at a nearby elementary school, got word of the attack while she was about 35 miles away in Bakersfield and immediately sped back to Taft.

"I just kept thinking this can't be happening in my little town," she told The Associated Press.

"I was afraid I was going to get hurt," Alexis said. "I just wanted my mom to get here so I could go home."

Taft is a community of fewer than 10,000 people amid oil and natural gas production fields about 120 miles northwest of Los Angeles.

About 900 students are enrolled at the high school, which includes ninth through 12th grades.

The attack there came less than a month after a gunman massacred 20 children and six women at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., then killed himself.

That shooting prompted President Obama to promise new efforts to curb gun violence. Vice President Biden, who was placed in charge of the initiative, said he would deliver new policy proposals to the president by next week.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., said in a statement that her father had attended Taft Union and she has visited the school over the years.

"At this moment my thoughts and prayers are with the victims, and I wish them a speedy recovery," Feinstein said. "But how many more shootings must there be in America before we come to the realization that guns and grievances do not belong together?"

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