Cambodian "Miss Landmine" pageant organizers appeal government ban

Aug 3, 2009, 7:36 GMT

   Phnom Penh - The organizers of a beauty pageant for female Cambodian landmine victims Monday called on the government to reverse its last-minute decision to prevent the contest from going ahead.

   The government Sunday announced that it would call for the cancellation of the 'Miss Landmine' pageant, just days before the contest was to be launched in Phnom Penh.

   The Ministry of Social Affairs said in a letter to organizers that the pageant should be cancelled because it threatened the 'honor of disabled people, especially women'.

   Morten Traavik, the pageant's director, said despite meetings between organizers and ministry officials Monday morning, it 'looked like the government will maintain its position'.

   'There is a lot of speculation about why this has happened, especially now there are increased restrictions on free speech in Cambodia,' he said. 'I was very surprised by this decision and obviously I wouldn't have started the process organizing the event if I hadn't had the input of government.'

   It was unclear whether the pageant could go ahead without the ministry's approval, he said.

   Twenty landmine victims from around the country entered the pageant, which until Sunday had the support of the government and a range of anti-landmine groups.

A photo exhibition in Phnom Penh on Friday was to be followed by an internet voting campaign to select the winner, who would have been awarded prize money and a prosthetic limb at crowning ceremony in December.

    The first 'Miss Landmine' pageant held in Angola in 2007 drew criticism from women's rights and disability groups, who called it exploitative and insensitive to war victims.

   But Traavik, a Norwegian national, said the event aimed at 'empowering victims' and helping them to recover from trauma.

   'The women involved are very disappointed,' he said.

   Hundreds of Cambodians are killed or maimed by landmines and other unexploded ordinance left over from wars and civil conflicts that raged from the 1970s to the early 1990s.