Shanghai launches "divorce club" on Valentine's Day
(Agencies)
Updated: 2006-02-15 11:27

China's growing number of divorcees were invited to join in Valentine's Day celebrations with the launch in Shanghai of a club especially for those who have been unlucky in love.[AFP]

China's growing number of divorcees were invited to join in Valentine's Day celebrations with the launch in Shanghai of a club especially for those who have been unlucky in love.
 
About 135 "wealthy men and women" had already joined the Divorce Club which would provide counselling, social events and divorce parties, the Youth Daily's website said.

"To be released from a dead marriage is a happy occasion, so we chose Valentine's Day to launch the club," it quoted the head of the club, Shu Xin, as saying.

The club would provide around 200 counsellors offering online advice to the lovelorn, the report said.

The launch of the club comes as the divorce rate in Shanghai, China's financial capital, rose 12 percent in 2005, the Oriental Morning Post said, citing Shanghai Civil Affairs Bureau figures.

Experts partly attribute the steady climb in failed marriages to the simplification of divorce procedures since 2003.

But higher birth rates in the 1970s and 1980s led to a rise in marriages and, subsequently, more divorces.

Although divorce was frowned upon in China only two decades ago, it is now common across the country. The divorce rate climbed 21.2 percent in 2004 with 1.6 million couples parting, according to official statistics.