Description
International responses to humanitarian emergencies are changing. While philanthropy and individual initiatives are part and parcel of humanitarian history, private individuals are increasingly asked by governments to contribute and participate in cross-border humanitarian efforts. One example of this is how nations in the Global North, such as the UK and Canada, have developed ‘refugee host’ programmes, asking private families to host refugees fleeing the war in Ukraine.
In this paper we offer a feminist analysis of the vulnerabilities that such initiatives produce and how the thorny ‘public/private’ distinction challenges the existing humanitarian system and associated conceptions of rights, protection, and justice. Acknowledging that the humanitarian system is gendered, racialised and ableist in ways that generate and facilitate abuse and exploitation across and within national borders, we explore how existing institutional responses – in the shape of Prevention of Sexual Exploitation, Abuse and Harassment (PSEAH) and Safeguarding frameworks – can respond to the ‘domestication’ of humanitarian responses. We question the possibility for a truly ‘feminist’ humanitarianism in a field characterised by ever-expanding geographies and relations of vulnerability, where institutional responses consistently fail to challenge structures of power and injustice at the heart of humanitarianism, and consider implications for the future of international humanitarianism
