of futility among frontline workers. NGO workers feel expendable, useful only for the successful completion of a particular humanitarian mission. The same authors have found that most NGO workers are overqualified for the position they hold. This is not a coincidence. In fact, hiring people, who are expected to do more than their job description entails is a well-established practice of these organisations. As an NGO psychologist reflected ‘I couldn’t work as a psychologist.109 It was a multifaceted role. I had to search for clothes for them, clean the office, distribute NFI items, make sure the detainees took their pills, negotiate access on a daily basis. Goodness, what have we done?’ (Interview, Athens, 2018). The way these programmes were implemented transformed workers into multifunctional machines expected to do everything with limited means available. In fact, the narratives of NGO workers examined shed light on a division of development and precarious aid labour that ‘disproportionally puts the burden of unstable, physically and emotionally demanding, and scarcely prestigious, work on them’ (Pascucci, 2018, p. 756). The humanitarianism mission was often used as an alibi for these inhumane working conditions. ‘We are here for the refugees, who are facing unprecedented hardships, so you can work past working hours or stay two, three, ten months unpaid’, the line of argument went. By exploiting “us” wealthy individuals against poor refugees, reprehensible acts of NGO employees and the wider detention system are made righteous. In this case, migrants are never part of the equation but rather refugees, who are deemed more worthy of our sacrifices. The more flagrant the contrasting hardships, the more likely it is that the employers asking for more sacrifices appear benevolent. The task of making violence morally acceptable from a utilitarian perspective is facilitated by a humanitarianism which is ultimately bereft of its humanity (Kapsali and Mentinis, 2019). Documenting abuses In this general climate of fear, violence inside detention was normalised. Allegations of illtreatment were either disregarded for ‘people lie and complain all the time’ (Fieldnotes, Petrou Ralli detention centre, 2012), according to the NGO psychologist at the Petrou Ralli detention centre, or treated as isolated incidents attributable to some well-known 109 For an analysis of the role of psychologists in refugee settings in Greece see Kapsali and Mentinis (2019). 161