“Street of broken hearts,” is the popular name of Dujke Komljenovic Street in Banja Luka. The reason for that is that almost 40 divorced men live here.
Divorced men from this street organize a joint gathering once a year. They say that they are not proud of the number of their divorces, but they are proud of the fact that a large number of them remarried, and got about hundred descendants.
Banja Luka is an absolute recorder in BiH when it comes to the number of divorces. Data from the Institute for Statistics say that there were 294 divorces only in 2016. Data from the census state that a total of 7,240 divorced people live in the city on Vrbas River, of which 4,300 are women, while almost 3,000 are men.
There are many reasons for divorces.
“There is alcoholism, domestic violence, and unemployment, i.e. economic status. Sometimes the reason is interfering of primary families of spouses. When it comes to their expectations, people are mostly disappointed because they imagined the marriage in a whole different way,” explained Radmila Dasic from the Center for social work in Banja Luka.
The number of divorces in the entire BiH is in constant increase. Data from the census from 1991 say that there were 20 divorces on 1,000 marriages, while the census from 2013 showed that every tenth marriage is not successful and that from 1,000 marriages, a total of 100 of them ends up in divorce. Today, there are more than 100,000 divorced people in BiH.
(Source: N1)
