Gender inequality in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) has long been evident and is reflected in all spheres of society. However, the unequal representation of women and men when it comes to naming streets is not discussed enough.
A group of young volunteers, guided by the obvious imbalance in the number of streets named after men and women, launched the “Her Street” (”Njena Ulica”) project.
The first part of the project was related to the research on the number of streets named after deserving women. The results of the project are devastating.
“At the very beginning of our research, we saw the situation, that out of a total of 1,037 streets in the city of Sarajevo, only 17 are named after women,” told Layla Jusko, a member of the “Her Street” project.
In the previous period, young people also worked on raising awareness about the necessity of naming streets after deserving women of BiH, by painting a map of the center of Sarajevo, which was displayed at the exhibition in the Brodac gallery.
“At the exhibition, we presented successful women and their achievements and contributions to BiH. At the end of the exhibition, we gave the visitors the opportunity to write the names of the women whom they think deserve to be on the map of the city of Sarajevo on their own initiative. The exhibition was very successful, and it not only attracted attention on social media, but also attracted a significant number of visitors, which testifies to the prevailing feeling of dissatisfaction regarding the current state of street names,” added Jusko.
E.Dz.