Most are working and paying taxes. Yet hundreds of thousands of women given refuge in Czechia must deal with public distrust and a shrinking pool of state aid.
“We can’t build our future – we don’t know what to expect,” said a Ukrainian woman during a mother’s support group meeting at Svitlo, a Prague-based NGO that helps Ukrainian migrants.
Her sentiments were echoed by two others. All three women traveled to Prague by themselves with their children just after the full-scale war began in Ukraine in 2022. Once a week, they gather with Ukrainian psychologist Anna Katruk, who “tries to help them find support and land [on] their feet,” she said.
Three and a half years after Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine, hundreds of thousands of refugees in Czechia, and millions across Europe, are still grappling with uncertainty about their futures.
The Czech Republic has the highest per capita rate of refugees in the European Union, with 35 Ukrainian temporary protection holders for every 1,000 residents. As of February 2025, almost 400,000 Ukrainian refugees currently reside in the country, with most living in Prague, the capital.
Housing shortages, language barriers, and finding jobs and childcare are among the top challenges that refugees in Prague – overwhelmingly women with children – navigate. Instability in Ukraine and political uncertainty in Czechia, where populist Andrej Babis is far ahead in the polls with elections set for October, colors refugees’ lives, making it almost impossible for them to make long-term plans.
The Gender Perspective
The vast majority of Ukrainian refugees are women and children, since martial law in Ukraine prevents nearly all men between the ages of 18 and 60 from leaving the country.
When the refugee wave began in 2022, almost 80 percent of Ukrainian refugees in Czechia were women, Jakub Andrle, a migration specialist with the refugee support program of the Czech aid charity People in Need, noted. Now, the figure hovers at around 60 percent.
“You have to consider the gender perspective here,” said Iva van Leeuwen, a lawyer familiar with the issue and a former OSCE monitor in Ukraine. “It’s super high stress – women are scared for their husbands and their families” back in Ukraine.
Single mothers “carry a double burden,” said Nataliia Borovska, who works with migrants at the Prague Integration Center, a city- and EU-funded support organization. “Many are in the Czech Republic without their partners or relatives, meaning they lack support in everyday life. As a result, they have little time to study Czech intensively, look for a better job, or improve their situation. They are stuck in a vicious circle that is hard to break alone,” she explained.
As women who expected to stay in Prague for weeks watched their time extend to months, and then to years, the need for mental health resources has increased.
“Basically, all the work that is necessary [for the family’s survival] is centered on them. And that’s the hardest part. And after two or three years of this, it’s starting to take its toll,” Andrle said.
Research in the first year of the war found that 45 percent of Ukrainian refugees reported moderate or worse depression or anxiety, five-fold the level in the general population.
This issue isn’t going away anytime soon — and if anything, the need for psychological assistance will only grow, as “there are more and more people [seeking help for] PTSD, depression, anxiety,” Andrle said.
Borovska said the uncertainty that migrants face severely impacts their emotional well being. “Ukrainian mothers often feel at a crossroads – whether to learn the language, fully commit to integration, or to view the Czech Republic only as a temporary place of residence,” she said.
Nora Fridrichova, a former TV journalist whose NGO Satnik provides free clothes and goods to single-parent families — including many Ukrainian women — noted that when refugees first began to arrive, “they didn’t know where they would be in the next month.”
Job Challenges
In addition to its emotional weight, living with so much uncertainty has practical challenges.
“Some employers do not want to sign work contracts for a period longer than the visa’s validity. The same problem occurs with lease agreements,” said Borovska.
Most Ukrainian migrants currently hold temporary protection visas, which can only be extended for one year.
Job hunting can be frustrating given the language barriers that many migrants face; qualifications in the Ukrainian job market often don’t translate to Czechia’s. Anna Katruk, the Ukrainian psychologist who provides counseling services to refugees, reflected, “Many highly educated people – doctors, lawyers, teachers – are faced with the fact that they are not needed here and cannot support themselves.”
“They have to work in low-skilled, physically demanding jobs,” she added, leaving them physically exhausted and demoralized.
According to a recent research report coordinated by the UN refugee agency, the employment rate for Ukrainian refugees in Czechia rose from 62% in 2023 to 76% in 2024, the highest in Central and Eastern Europe. Nearly a third of refugees in Czechia held more than one job, according to Vox Ukraine.
Many mothers’ family commitments leave them little time for any kind of job. Olena Krasulenko, who used to be a chief marketing officer in Kyiv, said that she and the other Ukrainian mothers she knows “spend the biggest part of time just caring about kids.”
“We can find jobs. But not full-time jobs. It’s not possible for us because we need to manage that unusual timeline,” planning their schedules around their children’s, Krasulenko said.
Mothers also often have difficulties getting their children into school in the first place, Krasulenko said. “We are ready to integrate,” but many mothers require support “with getting our children into schools and kindergartens, where there are very few places and applying is often difficult because of the language barrier.”
Olena Krasulenko says she and other Ukrainian mothers spend much time “just caring about kids.”Declining Support
Several sources familiar with work with Ukrainian migrants commented that public support has been steadily declining.
Iva van Leeuwen noted that at the beginning of the invasion, there was an “unprecedented wave of support for Ukrainians.” And in the last three years 40% of Czech people have found ways to support Ukrainian migrants, whether through financial donations, offers of material assistance, or volunteering their time.
Although the war and its repercussions are still covered in the media, the public is losing interest in the refugee situation. Van Leeuwen said that Russian disinformation campaigns have a role in declining public support.
Several NGO workers remarked on a common misconception that Ukrainian migrants take more from the state than they receive, a narrative that has fueled antipathy toward recent Ukrainian migrants.
On the contrary: Ukrainians pay more in taxes than they receive in social benefits. The same is true in Poland, where 1 million refugees now live, according to a March report by the country’s National Development Bank (BGK).
The Czech government is also trimming the benefits paid to refugees. While it is true that Ukrainian refugees still receive a small cash stipend for the first six months, it is not enough to live on. (Elsewhere, support is declining as well: Hungary, Slovakia, and Poland have recently reduced or eliminated similar programs.)
Roughly 66% of Ukrainian refugees in the country were either working or engaged in business as of a year ago, Czech Interior Minister Vit Rakusan stated in September 2024, and only about a third had ever applied for humanitarian assistance.
Refugees themselves have noted the public’s fatigue. The Ukrainian mothers interviewed for this article recalled being yelled at in public buses for speaking Ukrainian, stopped on the street, and treated condescendingly by people in work and school environments.
Funding Cuts
While the war’s end is still not in sight, many NGOs are downsizing as they face budget cuts; the cutoff of funding from the U.S. aid agency USAID has had trickle-down effects.
Svitlo, whose name translates to “light” in Ukrainian, has provided a wide variety of services to Ukrainian refugees in Prague since 2022, including classes that support integration, psychological counseling services, and various community activities. But according to Lenka Kachik, a project manager at Svitlo, the organization’s big grant is set to expire soon and they are unsure where future funds will come from.
The group says it has helped 18,000 refugees in the past three years. They have already had to downscale some of their services, including their free child care program, much to the dismay of the mothers in the support group.
People in Need, a global aid organization, also anticipates having less resources in the near future.
“We don’t know what the situation will be in two years and if there will be enough services for people who need them,” said Andrle. He explained that U.S. aid cuts have indirectly affected People in Need’s work with Ukrainian refugees. While their services in Czechia are funded by a public appeal that was unaffected by the loss of USAID funds, the organization has been forced to reorganize its finances more generally, with one result being less money available for projects involving refugees in Czechia.
People in Need has already been forced to end some of their services, including a program to provide material aid for expectant mothers, which closed after operating for two years.
“Sooner or later, we will have to restructure or limit our services,” Andrle said, even though, he added, “the need for these services will not disappear.”
While People in Need has been the most generous contributor to refugee aid projects in terms of both finances and number of workers, Andrle stressed the collective effort of many groups in a wider, informal web of helpers.
Other smaller nonprofits, like MinimimiUa, which focuses on helping expectant mothers, are also feeling the cuts. People in Need helped by paying its workers for more than two years but is no longer able to continue this assistance.
“We are looking for someone to support us, otherwise we will be forced to close our help,” said the organization’s founder, Karolina Ruppert.
A Permanent Solution?
Earlier this year, the Czech government approved a long-term residence scheme with the aim of providing migrants with a longer-lasting alternative to temporary protection. But the program is only available for refugees who don’t receive state benefits and who earned more than 440,000 Czech crowns in 2024 (about 18,000 euros, roughly two-thirds the average salary).
Those who qualify will be given five-year residence permits with a possibility of later applying for permanent residency. They will have free access to the labor market but will not be entitled to most non-contributory social benefits. According to media reports, less than 20 percent of Ukrainians living in the country are likely to meet the economic conditions required for the permit.
Andrle noted that almost none of People in Need’s clients — mainly low-income mothers with young children — earn enough to obtain a special long-term residence permit.
“From our point of view the criteria are absurdly strict. Other organizations supporting Ukrainian refugees see it the same way,” he said.
The current situation threatens to leave thousands in limbo once the fighting stops. The temporary protection scheme will expire once a ceasefire takes effect or the war ends, Rakusan said in February.
Nonetheless, nearly two in three Ukrainian refugees plan to stay in Czechia when their temporary protection ends, according to a government survey of nearly 14,000 refugees in 2024.
Anecdotally, Fridrichova noted that at Satnik’s warehouse, Ukrainian mothers increasingly pick up Czech books at the donation center, signaling a greater degree of integration.
Alexandra, who attends Svitlo’s refugee support group for Ukrainians, said: “My kids asked me every day for two years when they could return home.” Now, after being integrated into school, they see opportunities in Czechia. Like many refugees interviewed, her husband remains in Ukraine.
When Kateryna Bykova fled Kharkiv in March 2022, she was six months pregnant. Her child was born in August of that year. She said that when she first arrived in Prague, a few weeks after the war started, she did not know whether to devote the time and energy to integration.
“I thought about it every day – I was very nervous – because I didn’t know which language to learn with my kid. Prepare him for kindergarten in what city? In what country? It’s a very hard question,” she said. “But now, I understand that we will maybe stay here in Prague. [There is] no good progress in Ukraine.”
Olena Krasulenko, the former marketer in Kyiv, said it isn’t clear what legal protections will still be in effect in a year’s time. “I didn’t know that I would stay here for a long time – a lot of Ukrainians have no long-term plans at all.”
Sofia Cipriano recently completed an editorial internship at Transitions. She is pursuing a bachelor’s degree in English at Princeton University.