Preface by Barbara Pollastrini (Minister for Women’s Affairs in Italy)At the dawn of the third millennium, women still are subject to the most diverse forms of injustice, which often deprive them of fundamental personal rights. In this shocking book, dramatic stories of “humiliated” women align: for the most part stories of prejudice and misery in far off places, but also stories set in our cities, in our world, because this shame is ubiquitous in all religions and all cultures. From this collective work, in which journalists and scholars from various disciplines and five continents have participated, emerges an X-ray of Planet Woman that reveals the hidden face of women’s condition.