Three decades were not enough to overcome what should have stayed in the past. The voice about the reorganization, the splitting of Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) – a state from which Croats, Serbs, Bosniaks, and others are leaving, has never been stronger. Who will be left with the ideologies and messages wehave heard today? The estimates of the United NationsPopulation Fund (UNFPA) are devastating. In the next year, an average of 23.000 young people will leave BiH.
When it comes to the younger population, one in two people in BiH is considering leaving the country temporarily or permanently. This was shown by new research, for the needs of which 5.001 people aged 18 to 29 were examined.
Politics, dissatisfaction with the quality of life, unfavorable socioeconomic conditions, unemployment, and distrust in public institutions are the key reasons for mass emigration.
“Young people do not leave just because of work, money, and fabulous life in some other countries. They leave because of other things. It is much more complicated. They feel insecure because other people are deciding their fate and leading them in a direction they don’t want to. Poor education and, of course, health services and everything else, ” said Harun Sabanovic, a member of the Youth Council of the Brcko District.
“In umbrella organizations, we believe that it is about time to start recognizing youth work, to finally start investing in youth organizations and youth structures,” told Asja Dizdarevic, president of the Federation of BiH (FBiH) Youth Council.
Representatives of the UNFPA mentioned that current activities in the field of preventing young people from leaving the country are not enough.
”Young people move, it’s in human nature. But that must not be the only way out. That must be just one of the options, “explained John Kennedy Mosoti, UNFPA Representative in BiH.
State institutions are under blockade, the number of unemployed is increasing every day, the quality of public services is at an unenviable level – there are many reasons to leave. While we wait for others to solve our accumulated problems, the state must urgently offer reasons to stay and plan the future of young people in BiH. If the emigration trend is not stopped in time, there will be no future in the country of the elderly.
