By Agnieszka Gryz

Bleak walls covered in oil paint—the hallmark of post-Soviet interiors—filled with a single row of old-fashioned metal cribs. Behind them, a set of kiddie wall stickers in the shape of a web, with a rainbow-colored spider tangled in it. Upon searching kojenecké ústavy, the images appearing on a web browser look rather grim.

By 2025, the infamous infant care centers will cease to exist as Czech MPs and senators amend the legislation on the social and legal protection of children. The amendment, however, is yet to be signed by president Miloš Zeman.

“Currently, the legislation prefers to place the smallest children to foster care rather than into institutions, however, it does not forbid it,” says Michaela Poláková from SOS Children’s Villages Czech Republic. The amendment, already passed in both houses of the Czech Parliament, prohibits placing children under the age of 3 in infant care centers, kojenecké ústavy. If signed by the president, the ban will come into force on January 1, 2025.

With individual facilities housing as many as 92 infants and toddlers, kojenecké ústavy have been the source of a long-standing resentment from the humanitarian sector in Czechia and beyond. Lumos, an NGO founded by J.K. Rowling is one of them. When Bakala Foundation reached out for comment, it was warmly greeted by Petra Kačírková, Lumos Country Director in the Czech Republic.

Despite moving offices, Petra found time to tell the tale of the “baby homes,” as she calls them. Amid boxes and phone calls (“Agnieszka, give me second”), she confidently explains Lumos’ mission statement. “We don’t want any child to be in [an] institution. But for the small ones, it’s most disturbing to be there,” she says, adding that for some, the trauma and the damage prove to be irreversible.

Kačírková tells me that Czechia has resisted changing its childcare system for years. Why? “That's the question I would also like to know the answer [to],” she says. Even though Petra describes the institutions as very well-equipped (“all of them, actually, are either new buildings or had been repaired from the European Union money 15 years ago”), she also says that “the psychological side of care is really pushed aside.” The material side of things seems to veil the core problem. “It sometimes makes it even more complicated because the people, they don't understand what's wrong with the institutions.”

She tells me a story she uses as somewhat of a pitch showcasing the unseen complexities. The main character in question? A little girl, diagnosed as disabled and placed in a childcare facility, with a life expectancy of only two years. Petra withholds personal details, for obvious reasons. “So, in foster care right now, she's reaching five. She's walking, she's riding [a] bike.” Kačírková attributes this positive development to the foster parents’ care and the “family environment” they provide.

Disabled infants and toddlers, however, will be exempt from the amendment. “Our proposal counts on an exception for such children. We cannot guarantee that they would find foster families, so they could remain in institutional care,” Olga Richterová, deputy chairwoman of the Pirate Party, told Czech Radio back in August. Michaela Poláková from SOS Children’s Villages explains that kojenecké ústavy will morph into care centers where children with severe disabilities will still be able to live “under precisely defined conditions.”

“In the whole of the Czech Republic, there are currently just 228 children below the age of three who are housed in infant care centers. Two-thirds are in the process of being returned to their original families,” said Richterová, the driving force behind the amendment. When asked to explain what “being returned” means, Poláková explains: “This can happen if the circumstances that prevented the biological parents from caring for the child have changed,” or if an extended family wishes to take care of the child. “Such a family is always subject to the supervision of the child welfare authority,” Poláková adds.

Petra Kačírková from Lumos dubs the number: “We are currently talking about 228 children. “It's not thousands and thousands of children, our country really can find the solution for [them].”

Some remain skeptical. Among them, the 15 deputies from the Communist Party (KSČM) who abstained from the initial vote on August 6. Even though the bill has now been approved by both houses of the Parliament — with the Senate voting in favour on September 8 — a hint of criticism remains. Deputy Hana Aulická Jírovcová from KSČM described the decision as “pre-election populism,” claiming there are “not enough quality foster parents in the Czech Republic.”

Bakala Foundation approached MP Olga Richterová for comment. Describing it as a “big step in the right direction,” she explains that the bill also increases the remuneration of legal guardians, tying it to the national minimum wage and allowing for its automatic adjustment.

“Until now, the amount of remuneration for foster parents has been set by law and consequently depended on the will and willingness of politicians,” says Richterová, adding that in recent years, the stipend offered to the short-term foster parents has dropped almost to the minimum wage level, without being automatically valorized.

"The link to the minimum pay will thus change this flaw that made the lives of the foster parents difficult in the last years,” Richterová says in response to my question on remedying the shortage of foster families.

“I believe that we are at the tipping point where the return to the old institutional system will not be possible,” Petra Kačírková from Lumos tells me. She remains positive. “[The change] doesn't happen in a year, but it happens. And if you start, if you put in the effort, you will then harvest the fruits in several years.”

In the Czech Republic, that effort began more than a decade ago. Now it seems to have sprouted the seeds of an institutional change. “Because children belong in families, not orphanages” — at last, I notice Lumos’ slogan tucked under Petra’s signature.