15-17 October 2025 | IHSA Panel, Marmara University in Istanbul, Türkiye and the Chr. Michelsen Institute (CMI) in Bergen, Norway.
Conference organisers: Humanitarian Studies Conference (IHSA)
Panel organisers: Listen H & Liminality Consortium
Abstract:
People living through acute and protracted humanitarian crises face important losses, including financial and material loss as well as loss of livelihoods and livelihood opportunities. Humanitarian assistance aims to alleviate the worst suffering associated with these losses, but cannot meet all of people’s needs. Resilient and resourceful, people find ways to meet these needs themselves, including by resorting to precarious, high-risk strategies with serious negative consequences for their physical and social safety and well-being, such as transactional sex. Resource constrained environments also increase vulnerability to exploitation and abuse. This panel will explore what is already known about these coping strategies and how vulnerability to associated risks, including of exploitation, might be mitigated by humanitarian actors. This is particularly important In the context of substantial funding reductions, including the closure of USAID.
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