Abstract Background Sexual violence against children (SVAC) is an acknowledged concern in humanitarian settings; yet, effective, tested interventions to support disclosure and access to care remain limited. This study assessed the feasibility of implementing SVAC screening, referral protocols, and service provision, in a bid to rectify these limitations within two primary schools in Uganda’s Kiryandongo Refugee Settlement. Methods A mixed-methods concurrent triangulation design was used to implement and assess the feasibility of a seven-month intervention (April–October 2024) in two primary schools. Para-Social Workers, trained under Uganda’s Ministry of Gender, Labour and Social Development, screened Primary 6 and 7 pupils, aged 11 to 35 years old, for SVAC. Older pupils (Primary 6–7) were selected for their perceived capacity to engage on the topic. Survivors received school-based psychological first aid and were referred to additional services as needed. Results The intervention demonstrated strong demand and acceptability among the target populations. All 831 eligible pupils assented to intervention participation, and the majority (96%, n = 794) ended up actually participating in the screening exercise. Of these, 82% ( n = 653) disclosed experiencing SVAC, with 100% receiving care. In contrast, in the absence of screening in the 12-month period before the intervention, only 16 pupils in the same primary schools disclosed experiencing SVAC and obtained care. Stakeholders – including parents, teachers, government, and humanitarian actors – expressed strong support for expanding the model, while pupils reported high levels of satisfaction with the intervention. Conclusions Proactive SVAC screening in schools within humanitarian settings is both feasible and holds promise for effectively identifying and supporting child and adolescent survivors of sexual violence. The intervention significantly increased disclosure and service uptake and was well received by all stakeholders. Findings support the adaptation and cautious scale-up of this model in similar, carefully selected and adequately resourced, crisis-affected contexts.

Abstract Despite recurrent cycles of armed conflict and destruction, many residents of South Lebanon choose to remain in their homes, resisting internal displacement even amid extreme insecurity. This paper examines the humanitarian dimensions of this decision, exploring how risk, resilience, and distrust in institutional protection mechanisms shape displacement choices. Drawing on qualitative interviews and ethnographic reflections following the - latest escalation of hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah in 2023, the study investigates why individuals and families remain despite persistent threats to their lives and livelihoods. The findings challenge conventional humanitarian assumptions that civilians will flee to safety when conflict intensifies, revealing instead that displacement decisions are shaped by deeply rooted socio-political and historical factors, including attachment to land, community ties, and prior experiences of forced displacement. The paper argues that for many, insecurity itself becomes a paradoxical form of security, as familiarity with conflict is often seen as less precarious than the uncertainties of flight, the vulnerabilities of displacement, and the shortcomings of humanitarian response. Furthermore, it critically examines the limitations of humanitarian interventions in such contexts, where aid structures prioritize those who flee while offering limited support to those who remain. By centering the voices and lived experiences of those who stay, this study contributes to broader discussions on protection in conflict zones, underscoring the need for more nuanced humanitarian approaches that recognize immobility as a coping strategy rather than an oversight. In doing so, it highlights the importance of addressing the full spectrum of humanitarian needs—not only for the displaced but also for those who, by choice or necessity, remain in harm’s way.

Abstract Humanitarian projects in the tri-border zone between the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the Central African Republic, and South Sudan rarely end with a clean closure. Drawing on in-depth interviews with local humanitarian workers (2022–2024), this research argues that “abandonment” is not a moment but a temporal and structural process shaped by donor timelines and exit routines that reassign responsibility to those who remain. This process is conceptualized through four linked relations: (1) crisis temporality, whereby project speed and short-term deliverables undermine continuity; (2) infrastructural memory, as clinics, boreholes, and meeting spaces persist as material reminders of broken commitments; (3) emotional labor and moral injury among local staff asked to explain departures they did not decide; and (4) improvised continuities, in which local actors sustain fragments of care and monitoring after programs formally close. Together, these reveal how humanitarian time organizes the afterlife of aid, producing forms of violent inaction that are felt unevenly across communities. The research contributes an ethnography of exit that recenters local workers as stewards of humanitarian time and as custodians of its residues. It advances a framework for temporal accountability, proposing that exit strategies include commitments to infrastructural care, shared communication responsibilities, and recognition of local actors’ ongoing temporal labor. By reframing abandonment as governance over time, this research finally illuminates what endures after aid withdraws and what must change for more responsible closure.

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s41018-025-00174-z.

The article explores why the promised changes towards greater more equal power relation in the humanitarian system does not happen despite a general willingness to be part of that change. The articles argues that programmatic actors in INGOs have a role to play in this and have to on the responsibility to do what in within their power to make that change. Inspired by Tim Ingold’s conceptual framework, it provides examples from two suggested change processes, “capacity strengthening initiatives” and “participation” efforts, and why they do not effectuate change, because they are framed in structures, which maintain the status quo. The article argues that INGO actors need to build their response ability so they can work in correspondence with their local and national partners. This means that humanitarian actors have to move out of the comfort zone, which maintains an ineffective and power-unbalanced humanitarian system, and into a zone which may be unsettling and provide some discomfort, but which is inquisitive and open to actual equal participation in the important work of humanitarianism.

While recent contributions to the development literature suggest that the provision of small business grants, even accompanied by training, may not be a cost-effective means of achieving development outcomes, this article provides evidence that such provision may be cost-effective in relation to humanitarian outcomes, especially in the absence of economic growth. Since 2016, the International Committee of the Red Cross, in partnership with the Syrian Arab Red Crescent Society, provided 1000 Swiss franc grants to conflict-affected Syrian households to establish small businesses. The objective was to increase household income such as to meet essential needs. In 2023, an evaluation assessed the programme’s medium-term impact by examining businesses that had received support at least 2 years prior. The findings show a 2-year survival rate of 80% and a 5-year rate of 47%. Those households continuing their small business activity were found to have an average annual income of 17 million Syrian pounds, entailing they were just able to meet their essential needs. Beyond income generation, all supported households, regardless of whether they were continuing their small business activity or not, were found to be benefiting from increased market network participation, improving their access to economically advantageous information. Notably, as network theory suggests, it was acquaintance interactions, rather than the stronger relationships with family and friends, that seems to be the primary source of novel economic information. These results suggest that in the presence of a robust informal sector, small business grants can have a significant positive impact on household resilience, even where the macro-economic conditions are poor.

This special collection explores how responses to the COVID-19 pandemic have affected the provision of humanitarian aid and the protection of human rights. The aim is to investigate how international governmental organizations (IGOs) and international non-governmental organizations (NGOs) have dealt with the crippling consequences of the pandemic in the social and economic spheres, intending to address them but also to generate new strategies and approaches to increase resilience for the future. The significance and the necessity of the topics presented in this issue are straightforward: it is important to address COVID-19 in its manifold dimensions, that is, the responses to it, its direct consequences, and its secondary ramifications that are still understudied in academic literature.

In the Syrian civil war, the Syrian government has imposed numerous restrictions and employed violence to assert its sovereignty in humanitarian action, creating significant challenges for humanitarian aid organizations. These organizations, in turn, have had to navigate a complex landscape, contending with political realities that often subordinate humanitarian principles to the primacy of state sovereignty. This research examines this interaction between the state and aid organizations in the provision of humanitarian assistance, focusing on how aid organizations interpret and experience state sovereignty in their work. Based on a survey conducted with aid professionals, I first identify the ways state sovereignty is articulated in humanitarian action and then explore aid workers’ perceptions of state sovereignty in relation to humanitarian norms and principles. I demonstrate that the global governance aimed at preserving human lives and mitigating suffering, far from being singular and cohesive, is marked by diversity and shaped by the influence of state sovereignty. While the overarching objective remains consistent—to alleviate human suffering—the very bedrock of international humanitarian norms and principles amidst the conflict constantly undergo negotiation and divergence across humanitarian aid organizations.