According to the complaint of seven contestants in the Miss Universe Indonesia pageant, the members of the jury asked them to undress for a complete physical examination. They accuse them of sexual harassment.
The Miss Universe beauty contest will take place on November 18 in El Salvador and all its candidates will soon be known. To represent France, it is Diane Leyre, Miss France 2022, who will fly to face beauty queens from around the world in Central America. She can count on the support of Iris Mittenaere, last French candidate to have won the international trophy in 2017. In December 2021, the latter strongly criticized the selection criteria for the competition, judging that it was necessary “break all the rules”. A statement that now echoes what happened during the Indonesian selection, which took place in Jakarta from July 29 to August 3. Seven candidates filed a complaint with the police after the competition, accusing the jury of sexual harassment, according to AFP.
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According to the plaintiffs’ lawyer, Mellisa Anggraini, the company PT Capella Swastika Karya, organizer of the Miss Universe Indonesia pageant, asked the 30 finalists to completely undress to check for any presence of “scars, cellulite or tattoos on their bodies”. Five of them were even photographed. An intrusive request that took the candidates by surprise: “They did not know that they would be subject to such a procedure, sinceit was originally supposed to be a fitting“, said their lawyer. Other candidates could join the complaint and thus reinforce the voice of the complainants. Jakarta police said these complaints will be investigated and will serve “baseline for further investigation”. On the page of the organization of the contest, the national director of Miss Universe Indonesia thanked on Instagram people who shared “their opinions, their feelings and their analyses”. “Your comments are not just words: they are a powerful driving force”, she continued. In another post on the social network, she indicates that she has decided to “remove the minimum size criterion”.
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The Miss France contest accused of sexism
Formerly chaired by the late Geneviève de Fontenay, the French edition of the competition has regularly been singled out. If the competition has never asked its candidates to appear naked in front of the jury, it is often considered sexist, even outdated. Accusations which have aroused strong reactions from the side of the defenders of the competition, starting with its president Alexia Laroche-Joubert, who considers it “feminist”. Former candidates, such as Amandine Petit and Clémence Botino, have also defended the competition.
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Passionate about writing, Floréane is interested in a wide variety of subjects. When she’s not writing about current events, the environment or gender issues, she takes refuge under a blanket…