Over years, beauty pageants have drawn a lot of flak over being highly sexist and for objectifying women’s bodies. But Peru decided to do something about it by having a different kind of beauty pageant. In an applause-worthy step, Miss Peru 2018 contest organisers asked all the female contests to register a protest against violence against women in the country in an unique way. So, as everyone is aware, contestants at all these beauty pageants are required to give out their body measurements (bust-waist-hip) while introducing themselves. But at the Miss Peru 2018, contestants gave out the disturbing statistics of crimes against women in their country.
Peru has seen a rise in the number of gender-based violence incidents in recent past. “Twenty-four per cent of women who had sought help were murdered by the assailant they had reported to the authorities, according to a study by Peru’s ombudsman office”, as per a report by the Guardian.
And this is how it happened:
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“According to a recent report, there has been a 26 percent surge in complaints about gender violence between January and April in 2017,” suggests an article on TeleSUR’s website, a television network covering pan-Latin American news.
Women organisations have been registering their protest for far too long now and several marches were organised across the Latin American countries of Mexico, Bolivia, Columbia, Argentina and Brazil raising the slogan Ni Una Menos (Not One Less). The organisers of the Miss Peru 2018 contest sought to do the same and raise their voice against the problem of femicide in Peru and it’s definitely praiseworthy.
(Source: Buzzfeed)
