Others were more forceful accusing her of smuggling migrants from Turkey and suggesting that she would soon be into trouble. The same police officer would call her frequently to tell her where he saw her, with whom and even complimenting her on the dress she was wearing at the moment of the call, establishing evidence for the constant surveillance she was under. She had to leave the island to feel safe and still suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder. Yet, while often leaving the field seems to be the only answer, ‘the question…is what would happen if we were not there’ (Interview, Athens, 2018), as posed by an NGO worker. The stark realisation that if they were not there, the detained people would not have had anything or anyone advocating for them, supported and legitimated NGO practices, including lack of effective action, as argued by Esposito, et al. (2020b) about the Italian context. This in turn allowed them to sidestep gross human rights violations, extreme violence and inhumane living conditions, some of which they saw themselves and others were reported to them by detainees. In the words of a former practitioner ‘Nobody had told us that we should not speak up about what we saw but we sort of knew that we were not allowed to. We were afraid they [police officers] would become aggressive, not just physically, but also verbally, to humiliate us…Rather than clashing with the police, I chose to do my job and offer care’ (Interview, Athens, 2018). Humanitarianism without humanity While the police thought NGO workers were smug philanthropist (women), the reality on the ground was quite different. The booming of the third sector in Greece brought a rapid expansion of the NGO workforce. While so-called humanitarian volunteering has gained some academic scrutiny in Greece (Kalogeraki, 2018; Parsanoglou, 2020; Rozakou, 2012), NGO workers have eluded most analysis thus far. However, a closer look at these silenced protagonists helps unravel the multiple paradoxes of the humanitarian industry in Greece. Locating the situation in the Greek context, the political responses that were imposed as a remedy to the debt-crisis in 2008, have completely altered the socio-economic grounds of the middle and lower classes, who have consented to an impoverished democracy in return for a debt-financed affluence. The majority of Greek people have lost various rights, including social benefits, welfare and labour rights. Their political liberties have also been undermined (Douzinas, 2013; Stavrakakis, 2013). A general reduction in wages and welfare 159