In Kazakhstan, the penalties for so-called bride kidnapping are to be toughened up. The local parliament is working on changing laws to try to eradicate what is now considered an outdated custom.

Armed men have kidnapped 26 people including a pastor and a bride in two separate raids in Nigeria, the latest in a string of mass abductions to rock the west African country.

BISHKEK (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Walking proudly down a catwalk, the lights and glamor seemed like a lifetime away from Elzat Kazakbaeva's nightmare ordeal five years ago when she was grabbed ...