"A probing and sophisticated analysis of the relationship between ever more precarious human rights and ever more common financial crises." -Joel Blau, Professor Emeritus of Social Policy, Stony Brook University, USA "The central questions Gautam studies here-which segments of society suffer the most during financial crises and why-are vital and timely. His thoughtful investigation teaches us a lot about the distributional implications of financial crises and how political institutions mitigate or magnify those implications." -Joel Simmons, Associate Professor, Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University, USA From the Great Depression in the twentieth century to the Great Recession in the twenty-first, systemic banking crises have been a recurring problem for both developing and developed countries. This book offers a human rights perspective on financial crises vis-à-vis low-income and least developed countries. It systematically analyzes government's commitment to women's economic rights and basic human rights during systemic banking crises. The book combines a wealth of data with rich theoretical arguments that weave together distinct but related bodies of literature from international development, human rights, and political economy. Rana S. Gautam is Assistant Professor in the Department of Sociology & Human Services at the University of North Georgia, USA. Before joining academia, he worked in the IT industry and was a journalist with an Indian daily newspaper. .