A new institute has been launched to counsel young men and women intending to marry. The Jeddah Chamber of Commerce and Industry's (JCCI) Social Responsibility Center initiative is aimed at reducing the Kingdom's spiraling divorce rate. The announcement was made at the JCCI 2012 meeting on strengthening family relationships this week. It follows recent statistics revealing that there were 25 divorces for every marriage in the Kingdom and the number of spinsters is set to rise to three million within the next two years. The meeting was attended by Dr. Ibrahim Al-Khlaifi, an expert in personality development; Saud Bin Mahmoud Sultan, president of the center; Faisal Abdullah Bataweel, JCCI Director of Social Responsibility Programs, and Ahmad Bin Abdul Aziz Al-Hamdan, a consultant. “Family is very important in our society and plays a major role in psychological stability. But today the number of divorce cases in Jeddah has dramatically increased,”Al-Hamdan said. He pointed out that changing social circumstances and family distances have increased spinsterhood cases and made people want to remain single for as long as possible. The social responsibility center will counteract this negative trend by providing programs on dealing with marital crises and virtues of leading a happy marital life. __
