A women's shelter in Poland fights for survival as anti-Ukrainian sentiment rises

A Ukrainian migrant in Poland has faced online hate despite her efforts to help others

KRAKOW, Poland -- When Nastya Podorozhnya's relatives fled the war in Ukraine for neighboring Poland, volunteers welcomed them with open arms.

Podorozhnya, 29, was already living in Poland when the war began. But days before Russia’s full-scale invasion on Feb. 24, 2022 , she rushed back to Ukraine to help her sister and nieces get out.

As she returned to Poland alongside an influx of refugees in the war’s first days, she witnessed the outpouring of support from Polish volunteers. But she also spotted a risk: Ukrainian women accepting help from strangers could become vulnerable to human traffickers.

That was when she decided to found Martynka, a helpline and support group for female Ukrainian refugees escaping gender-based violence.

Four years later, she is struggling to keep the organization afloat. Funding for refugee support is drying up, hostility toward Ukrainians is growing, and Poland still lacks a long-term integration strategy. As war fatigue deepens, politicians are increasingly exploiting anti-refugee sentiment for political gain.

The shift is being felt by groups such as Martynka. While fundraising was relatively easy in the first months of the war, international donors have since turned their attention to other global crises.

Martynka's shelter, located in an inconspicuous two-bedroom apartment in central Krakow, has hosted more than 100 women and children. Women receive help to escape abusers and access medical care, psychological support, jobs and housing.

“It often starts with me having tea in this very kitchen with the women and they tell me what happened to them and I say ‘girl, same,’” Podorozhnya told The Associated Press during an interview in the Krakow shelter, referring to her own experience of a man trying to rape her on a street in Poland in 2016.

As Podorozhnya and her colleagues struggle to raise enough money to keep the shelter open, she says calls for donations frequently trigger a torrent of online abuse.

Around 3.5 million Ukrainians fled to Poland in the first weeks of the war, according to the U.N. Poles greeted them at train stations and opened their homes to them, while the government granted refugees access to jobs and social security benefits.

The two countries share a long history of brutality at the hands of Russia, and Poland remains a key ally to Ukraine in the war.

By the end of 2022, the number of Ukrainian refugees in Poland had stabilized at around 1 million. Those who stayed were rapidly absorbed into the labor market: More than 70% found employment, and a Deloitte study estimated that they contributed 2.7% of Poland’s gross domestic product in 2024.

In addition to the refugees, most of whom are women and children, more than 1 million Ukrainians were already living in Poland before the war, primarily as economic migrants.