Miss Universe Canada: Three Iranian-descent semifinalists - Scandals again
Three ladies of Iranian-descent have won the Miss Universe Canada title in the past eight years. This year, out of the six Iranian-descent ladies selected in regional contests, three made it to the top 12 list but the highest position went to Neda Neda Derakhshanfar (picture here) as the third runner up behind this year's Miss Universe Canada Elena Semikina. Another Iranian, Paniz Yousefzadeh, won the Best Hair Award.
Like other Beauty Pageants, this year's Miss Universe Canada was not without controversy. One of the finalists, Sophie Froment of Quebec, was disqualified on June 12 - two days before the awards - apparently because of her X-rated appearance in a short video commercial by a company specializing in extramarital affairs, a hook-up site for unfaithful spouses. But Froment says the commercial was never aired, yet mysteriously uploaded by an unknown person on the internet the week before the Pageants. Froment is outraged: "I don't think it is fair at all. They make us go on a stage wearing bikinis and that’s OK to them. I don’t think I did anything wrong … I wasn’t doing porn." Froment is alluding to the lingerie shots required by the Pageants (image below).
Critics of the Beauty Pageants (like those organized by Donald Trump in America), label these events as superficial and commercial, leveraging young women's beauty and their half-naked bodies for marketing and commercial purposes (for a list of Top 10 Beauty-Pageant Scandals see this link).
Proponents of Beauty-Pageants point out to the positive publicity created for the contestants and its humanitarian benefits. Nazanin Afshin Jam, the 2003 Miss World Canada (of Iranian descent) is known, for example, to use her fame and connections for humanitarian causes. For instance, Afshin Jam's relentless campaign to Stop Child Executions, resulted in saving the life of a young Iranian girl who was sentenced to death because of manslaughter in self defense against rape. After pressures by UN (in response partially to Afshin Jam's tireless campaign) the young Iranian was re-tried in 2007 and found innocent although she had to pay $45000 in damages to the family of the dead alleged rapist. Most of this money was provided by a fundraising campaign championed by Afshin Jam.
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