Nearly 150,000 young people have left the country since the end of the 1992-1995 war until 2013, according to the Institute for Youth Development KULT.
Young people make up 20,5 per cent of Bosnia’s population and according to the KULT study form 2013, 67 per cent of them are unemployed. The percentage in EU countries tends to be about three times lower.
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Young people leaving Bosnia usually say they made the decision due to the political situation in the country, the instability and disrespect for human rights. Yet a strategy to keep youth from searching for a better life elsewhere is lacking.
“Bosnia and Herzegovina never had, nor does it today have, a strategic document which tends to the issue of the youth,” said KULT’s Katarina Vuckovic.
She explained that many young people never report that they left their place of residence and that statistical data on how many actually left is lacking for a decade already.
How many young people left the country since 2013 remains unknown, but according to the Union for Sustainable Return and Integrations in Bosnia and Herzegovina, the country lost about 172,000 citizens in general from 2013 until November last year.
