Miss Pakistan World pageant's timing causes dismay

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Miss Pakistan World pageant's timing causes dismay​

Demands for Toronto beauty contest to be called off in light of humanitarian crisis brought by flooding in Pakistan​

Alia Waheed
guardian.co.uk, Thursday 19 August 2010 18.16 BST

Soldiers control a crowd of flood survivors imploring them for help during a visit by US senator John Kerry and President . Photograph: Farooq Naeem/AFP/Getty Images

Fury has erupted over the decision to hold a beauty contest featuring scantily clad Pakistani women draped in the national flag, as Pakistan struggles with its worst ever humanitarian disaster.

The Miss Pakistan World pageant, which attracts contestants of Pakistani origin from across the world, will take place in Toronto tomorrow amid tight security, as anger grows about the event – which coincides with the holy month of Ramadan.

The pageant comes three weeks after the start of Pakistan's floods crisis, which has affected around 20 million people, inundated about a fifth of the country and killed more than 2,000.

Among those who have voiced their dismay is one of Pakistan's leading women's rights campaigners, Dr Amna Buttar, an assembly member in Punjab, one of the areas affected by the flooding.

"The organisers' actions are so far from reality that it shows they have no connection to Pakistani life," she said. "Empowerment of women does not come by parading yourself naked in front of people … This empowerment won't come from shattering their belief system."

A former winner of Miss Pakistan World called for the event to be postponed. "I think the organisers should postpone the Miss Pakistan event," said Naomi Zaman, a singer from Ontario. "At this moment, people are traumatised due to the flood disaster. We as Pakistanis abroad should all be focusing on helping the victims."

But the president of the pageant, Sonia Ahmed, said that the catastrophe gave more reason for the contest to go ahead.

"I feel very sad about the disaster but, as a Pakistani, it's my right and responsibility to bring my country out in this world in a lighter image," she said. "If there are people who think it's inappropriate to hold it in a disaster, then that's their thinking. But my duty as a Pakistani is to show the world that Pakistanis are not terrorists, honour killers or fundamentalists."

Beauty contests are hugely popular in south Asia and among its diaspora. But the Miss Pakistan World contest has never been held in Pakistan because of security risks.

Karachi-born Mariyah Moten, 26, a runner-up in 2006, said she and her family had received death threats after competing. She said:"My sisters and I received messages from strangers through websites expressing their hatred towards me. I've seen websites solely dedicated to expressing awful negative opinions about me."

Many of the protests against the contest have been led by cosmopolitan young Pakistani women – precisely the group the event claims to represent.

Mehreen Khan, 21, a student and part-time model from Lahore, said: "Although I'm not against beauty contests, it's degrading to see girls half-naked with the Pakistani flag. Having girls parading in skimpy swimsuits when there is a flood is sick."

Shabnam Rashid, a 48-year-old woman in Lahore, who has been waiting by the phone for news of her cousin and her family caught up in the flooding, agreed. "My cousin had recently arranged her eldest daughter's marriage and was excited about organising the wedding. Now I don't know if she is even alive. This beauty contest doesn't just insult us but stabs an already broken heart. How can they smile and dress up when we are dying? The event's heart is ugly," she said.

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