Monday, 21 April 2008

Landmine pageant heads for Cambodia

Miss Landmine Angola 2008

Daily Dispatch.
2008/04/21

CAMBODIA will play host to Miss Landmine 2009, the controversial beauty pageant’s Norwegian organiser said yesterday.

Miss Landmine parades beautiful female amputee landmine victims on the catwalk as they compete to win prosthetic limbs. Miss Landmine Angola 2008 was crowned the event’s inaugural winner this month, and the pageant’s founder, artist Morten Traavik, says he has his heart set on Cambodia as Miss Landmine’s next stop.

Despite backing from donors, including the European Union, the pageant has drawn howls of protest from rights activists and feminists, who brand it colonialist, racist, sexist and exploitative. Traavik, however, says it raises landmine awareness and empowers the amputee participants .

Bloggers have also had a field day with the idea, with Internet satirists caustically suggesting the theme could inspire further tasteless spinoffs, from Miss Holocaust to Miss Ebola Virus.

— Sapa-DPA

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