This book is as important as any in the study of discrimination. Of all deprived groups in the world today, women seem to have suffered the most throughout history. Racial, ethnic, and religious discrimination have produced numerous victims, but women, members of a majority group, have suffered even more than members of these minority groups. This Encyclopaedia is divided into five volumes covering different laws, rights and how the discrimination has done aganist women. But the denial of the rights of women around the world has not been seen as amjor feature of human rights. A comprehensive and comparative analysis of the rights of women, and of the abuse of those rights, meet as important a need as any in a full consideration of human rights. The time has come to provide a broad-based study of women's rights and laws.