Jane Addams. La schiavitù delle donne

The volume offers, for the first time in Italian, the study A New Conscience and an Ancient Evil, carried out by Jane Addams at the beginning of the twentieth century. The survey, based on extensive empirical documentation, analyzes prostitution and trafficking in white women, phenomena widespread in rapidly expanding American metropolises, to identify operational paths and educational interventions to combat them. It also reconstructs the details of the processes through which immigrant women are hooked by the traffickers and exploiters who govern the flow of trafficking from Europe to America, passing through Ellis Island. \ r\ n The added value of Jane Addams' sociological study consists in identifying the socio-political causes and responsibilities of the 'ancient evil', highlighting the connection between economic, cultural poverty and prostitution, the corruption of the political and management class, the collusion of law enforcement with criminal systems and also the historical-cultural causes of the overseas sexual market. Despite being written in the last century, the text represents an important reference for understanding the reasons for the spread and persistence over the centuries of 'women's slavery', showing the contradictions of a progressive, liberal and democratic society.