"Miss Landmine": Documentary Screening, Discussion & Dinner

(Photo: Miss Landmine on Facebook)

Sunday, October 30, 2011
Source: http://www.blogto.com/events/46713

Mines Action Canada is proud to partner with the Student Christian Movement of Canada for a screening of the highly contentious "Miss Landmine" documentary, as well as a discussion and dinner on the issues surrounding landmines and cluster munitions.

The screening of the documentary is especially timely, as the Eleventh Meeting of States Parties to the Ottawa Treaty (which bans the use/production/sale of landmines) is taking place in the Cambodian capital, Phnom Penh, from 28 November to 2 December (2011)

The documentary will be screened Sunday Oct 30 at 5pm at Bloor St. United Church, 300 Bloor St. W, in the large hall on the main floor. This venue is wheelchair accessible and very close to St. George subway station. A discussion will take place after the film, with the participation of two young Canadian who spent 6 months working in the field, one in Tajikistan and the other in Colombia. A vegetarian dinner will be provided and the film will be screened at no charge.

Cambodian beauty pageant for disabled full of land mines

Sunday, Nov. 21, 2010
ZSOMBOR PETER , PHORN BOPHA
PHNOM PENH— From Monday's Globe and Mail

Morten Traavik knew the idea of a beauty pageant for Cambodian land-mine victims was testing taboos: 20 women scarred by the country’s decades of war parading their amputated bodies for the chance at a new prosthetic limb.

“I wanted to see if I could apply my skills as an artist … to this reality and draw attention to the issues at hand in a new way that didn’t just confirm already established preconceptions of the land-mine survivors as pitiable abominations,” the Norwegian theatre director said.

He might even have expected the backlash that soon followed from some local charities, as happened with his first pageant for land-mine victims in Angola the year before. What he did not expect was the government’s about-face in August, 2009.

Days before a photo exhibit of the contestants was set to debut in the capital of Phnom Penh, a lead-up to the live pageant being planned for December, the Ministry of Social Affairs pulled the plug. Calling the affair an affront to Cambodian tradition, it ordered the project shuttered “immediately” and asked Mr. Traavik to leave the country. The local support he had dried up.

“When the Minister of Social Affairs himself started his own campaign against Miss Landmine,” he said, “everybody ran for cover.”

Miss Landmine, a new Canadian documentary that follows the project from start to finish, premiers Monday on CBC.

By the Cambodian government’s best estimates, land mines still litter some 650 square kilometres of the country, a legacy of the Khmer Rouge and their fanatic efforts to keep their neighbours and enemies at bay. In its pursuit of North Vietnamese forces crossing into Cambodia, the United States dropped another 2.75 million tons of bombs on the country during the Vietnam War, many of which failed to explode on impact and remain active to this day.

Together, land mines and other old ordnance have killed or maimed some 63,000 Cambodians since the 1979 fall of the Khmer Rouge and continue to claim more than 200 victims a year.

In moving the pageant from Angola to Cambodia, Mr. Traavik knew he had to make a few changes. In a culture where modesty trumps most other virtues, the swimsuits had to go. Soft, candy-coloured gowns took their place.

With support from the relevant ministries and the government’s mine-action agency, Mr. Traavik and his team set to work, scouring the country for contestants. With tens of thousands of land-mine victims across Cambodia, the women weren’t hard to find. They also found some critics.

“I have the same feelings now as then,” said Punk Chhiv Kek, the president of a leading local human rights group who called the pageant “a contest of suffering.”

“In my personal opinion, the project is in poor taste,” she said. “But at the end of the day, whether to appear or not is a decision for each contestant to make. They are, or should be, free to choose what they want.”

Others were more adamant. Chris Minko, an Australian national who heads Cambodia’s disabled volleyball league, took his complaint straight to the Minister of Social Affairs, suggesting Mr. Traavik be asked to leave.

“There are more dignified ways of showcasing the ability of Cambodian women land-mine survivors, such as through the many high[ly] successful and internationally recognized Cambodian programs of sport and disability,” he said.

The ministry agreed. NGOs that had supported the project fell silent. A letter Mr. Traavik sent to about 20 non-government groups asking for their support also went ignored. More than a year on, local NGOs active in mine clearance and victim assistance were still reluctant to talk about the pageant for the record.

Lim El Djurado, a spokesman for the Social Affairs Ministry, said the government banned the project to protect the country’s customs.

“We did not allow the contest to take place because it degrades Cambodian tradition,” he said. “When you make disabled people do this kind of thing, it looks like you mock them.

“If they really want to help, they can come and provide artificial limbs and give them skills to improve their lives.”

Mr. Traavik believes he was offering the women something just as valuable. By giving them a chance to be part of something typically reserved for the able bodied, he believes he gave them a chance to reclaim their pride and self-respect. For proof, he offers the women themselves.

“If they had felt the same way as the government,” he said, “they would never have taken part.”

Among the women who did was Dos Sopheap, who posed for her photo shoot with a toy machine gun.

From a soft black gown cut just below the knee, a single leg runs to the floor. She balances herself against a whitewashed wall with one arm and holds the gun in the other. Composed and confident, she offers up only the slightest smile, an image of playfulness and power all at once.

Fourteen years ago, at the age of six, Ms. Dos was headed fishing with some neighbours when they ran into a Khmer Rouge soldier, one of a band still holding out in a few remote pockets of western Cambodia. When the soldier tossed a grenade their way, she recalled, the group ran for cover. Someone stepped on a land mine. Her father lost a hand. Ms. Dos lost her left leg.

As that young girl grew older, she learned to hide.

“I didn’t want to go to school. When I saw other kinds wearing shorts, I really wanted to but couldn’t. … All I could do was cry,” she said. “I felt like I should not have been born.”

Now, she said, “I have hope about going back to school. I believe I can do things like the others.”

In December, the Miss Landmine team slipped back into Cambodia unannounced to officially crown Ms. Dos and present her with a new, custom-fitted prosthetic leg. When the government threw the project out of the country, Mr. Traavik simply moved the pageant online. Some 2,300 votes came in from more than 30 countries.

Miss Landmine captures the trip on film. As with the pageant, though, the government has vowed to bar any attempt to screen it in Cambodia.

Stan Feingold, the movie’s director, finds the government’s stand hard to fathom.

“The Miss Landmine project has a very positive message,” he said. “Disabled people don’t have to hide in their homes and be ashamed of their injuries. Disabled people can contribute in many positive ways to Cambodian society. I don’t understand how the Cambodian government could disagree with that.”

Special to The Globe and Mail

Miss Landmine

Dos Sopheap, Miss Landmine Cambodia (Photo: The Phnom Penh Post)

October 13, 2010
By Greg Hoekstra - North Shore Outlook

In the opening scene of Stan Feingold’s new documentary, Miss Landmine, a woman stands in the seaside paradise of Kep, Cambodia, with a sparkling tiara resting on her crown.

As waves gently lap against the sandy shoreline, the woman smiles awkwardly and poses for a series of glamour shots taken by a professional photographer.

Click. Click. Click.

Dangling from the woman’s right hand is a large silver disco ball that glimmers when it catches a ray of sunlight. But it’s the left sleeve of the woman’s white dress shirt that draws the most attention — hanging flat and empty, with no arm to fill it.

It’s then that the viewer realizes the woman in the spotlight is one of tens of thousands of amputees in Cambodia — a victim of the estimated 4 million landmines that litter the countryside.

So when Feingold — an award-winning North Vancouver filmmaker — first heard about the Miss Landmine beauty pageant, he knew immediately that it would make a great documentary.

“It’s a search for beauty in a dire social environment,” says Feingold. “In many ways that’s what my films tend to gravitate toward ... it’s about those that have been labelled rejects in their society, it’s about that flower that grows through the rubble.”

The film, which premiers this weekend at the San Francisco Documentary Film Festival, chronicles artist Morten Traavik’s attempts to stage a controversial beauty pageant for landmine survivors in Cambodia.

Over the course of a year, Feingold and his cinematographer, Brian Johnson, followed Traavik’s travels through the country as he recruited participants from each of the country’s 20 provinces.

Eventually, the pageant is outlawed by the Cambodian government for “causing shame to the Cambodian people,” but the cameras keep rolling, and the pageant continues both online and overseas.

The film culminates with a risky journey back over the Cambodian border to crown the winner with her grand prize — a $20,000 prosthetic leg made from titanium.

As a filmmaker, Feingold is no stranger to controversial subjects. In 2004 he directed the Gemini award-winning film Prisoners of Age, a documentary that examined the self-described “garbage of society” — geriatric convicts — and the often grim circumstances they face as their lives come to an end in prison.

A few years earlier, in 2001, he won an Emmy for his film Heroines, which used music, poetry and photography to illustrate the lives of women trying to survive in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside.

Even still, Feingold admits he was a little taken aback when Miss Landmine generated a slew of hateful, fiery messages online — mostly on feminist blogs and websites.

Some detractors argued that the pageant was sexist in nature, while others accused Traavik and the film crew of being exploitative white colonialists.

Some even went so far as to suggest the pageant sexualized the prosthetic limbs, making Feingold’s film a piece of amputee porn.

“I’ve heard it all, but I still truly believe it’s a noble effort,” says Feingold. “It meant so much to these people to have someone come and say ‘you’re beautiful.’ It made a huge difference in their lives.”

Feingold says he also hopes people won’t avoid seeing the film based on any presumptions.

“I think sometimes people hear about the pageant and their initial reaction is ‘that must be disgusting,’” he says. “I would encourage people to keep an open mind and watch it. It’s actually a movie full of contrast, irony, and beauty.”

This Saturday, Oct. 16, Feingold will fly to San Francisco to attend the film’s world premier. The following week he’ll fly to Norway to screen the documentary at the prestigious Bergen International Film Festival.

Canadian viewers will get their first chance to see the film when it premiers on Canadian television on November 22 at 6 p.m. on the CBC’s documentary channel.

For more on the Miss Landmine Pageant, visit www.miss-landmine.org.

Miss Landmine to Sweden

Dos Sopheap (Photo: The Phnom Penh Post)

09.03.2010
ScandAsia.com

When Dos Sopheap was four years she stepped on a landmine in his home country of Cambodia and lost his leg. Now she has won the first prize in the beauty contest Miss Landmine - where the award ceremony was held in secret because the Cambodian government banned it, reports Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet.

Now, the photos from the competition is a high-profile exhibition in Sweden.

When the Cambodian government banned the beauty contest the Norwegian artist Morten Traavik, the initiator of the contest for the second consecutive year, went around in Cambodia and met with the finalists in the secrecy.

He gave $ 1000 in prize to the beauty of Dos Sopheap, together with a prototype of a prosthesis to replace her lost leg. The prosthesis, is made of titanium and much smoother than the objects she has today.

“I am extremely pleased and proud to receive this award, especially the new prosthetic leg,” said Dos Sopheap to the Phnom Penh Post. Dos Sopheap will use the prize money to complete her studies. Her future dream is to work as an economist for a nonprofit organization.

Photo exhibition Miss Landmine

On March 9 the Army Museum in Stockholm opens the gates to the famous photo exhibition Miss Landmine. It shows colour photographs in large format and aims to shift the focus from women in a offer position to a rather strong survivor.

In this way, Norwegian Morten Traavik wants to reduce the feelings of inferiority and guilt diminished and instead create pride and strength.

Facts

• Every year, 20000 people are injured or killed from landmines.
• The UN has so far recognized 2 million people as victims of landmines, of which 300000 are in need of extensive care.
• Cambodia is the country with most mines in the world.

The banning of Miss Landmine Cambodia violates rights to freedom of expression

Miss Svay Rieng, Korn Savourn, in her promotional photo for the now-cancelled Miss Landmine Cambodia contest. (Photo by: GORM K GAARE)

Wednesday, 26 August 2009
Chheat Sreang
Letter to The Phnom Penh Post

Dear Editor:

I am writing to express my utter dismay at the government's decision to cancel the Miss Landmine Cambodia 2009 beauty pageant.

This decision, taken in the apparent interest of land mine victims, strikes at the heart of the self-worth of the participants and land-mine victims in general, and is further evidence that the government has little or no regard for freedom of expression in Cambodia.

Miss Landmine Cambodia was organised in order to "highlight globally a very serious and unnecessary social problem".

In a country with 25,000 amputees among 63,000 land mine victims, this kind of awareness-raising is badly needed. Nevertheless, whether such awareness-raising is required and, indeed, whether the competition itself is one of good taste are irrelevant considerations in the discussion at hand.

The lnternational Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), to which Cambodia acceded in 1992, and the Constitution of the Kingdom of Cambodia guarantee freedom of expression to all Cambodians.

The Miss Landmine Cambodia beauty pageant would have represented a rare opportunity for members of a marginalised group within Cambodia to exercise their freedom of expression, a freedom which is formulated on the basis of dignity and justice for all.

"How long will we wait until the government embraces ... the people they purport to represent?"

The decision to cancel the competition is testament to the sad reality that this "freedom", like so many others that are said to be guaranteed to all Cambodians on a nondiscriminatory basis, exists only in the abstract.

The government has stated that Miss Landmine Cambodia 2009 "would make a mockery of Cambodian land mine victims" and undermine their "dignity and honour".

The ICCPR states that freedom of expression may be subject to limitations where the rights and reputations of other citizens so require.

However, the beauty pageant had received the endorsement of the Cambodian Mine Action Group and the Cambodian Disabled People's Organisation. lt is apparent that the decision to cancel this pageant is entirely disproportionate and constitutes yet another violation of freedom of expression.

Whether this decision was motivated by prejudice or a genuine interest to protect what were believed to be the best interests of Cambodian land mine victims is beside the point.

The participants have the right to determine their interests and the decision to take part was theirs and theirs alone and should never have required government approval.

In 2007, at the inaugural Miss Landmine competition in Angola, the first lady of Angola presented the winners with their prizes.

The decision to cancel the Cambodian competition represents yet another blow to freedom of expression. One must ask: How long will we wait until the government embraces the rights of the people they purport to represent?

Chheat Sreang
Project Coordinator Cambodian Centre for Human Rights (CCHR) Member of the Alliance for Freedom of Expression in Cambodia (AFEC)

Cambodia: Miss Landmine Pageant Raises Questions

Wednesday, August 12th, 2009
By Chhunny Chhean
Global Voices Online

“Everybody has the right to be beautiful!” so starts the manifesto of the Miss Landmine pageant, started by Morten Traavik of Norway. According to the pageant site, the competition is intended to empower landmine victims and challenge traditional notions of beauty. The winner receives a high-tech prosthetic limb. Traavik has already organized a Miss Landmine pageant in Angola and was in the process of launching the event in Cambodia this month when the Cambodian government pulled its support and canceled the pageant.

The Mirror reports that other organizations, including the Cambodian Disabled People's Organization, declined to support the pageant after the Ministry of Social Affairs Veteran and Youth Rehabilitation expressed its displeasure with the pageant, citing the event could lead to misunderstandings about disabled people.

Not surprisingly, there have been varied reactions to the landmine pageant.

Jinja says:

I have mixed feelings about the cattle call of beauty pageants, but do agree with the general idea behind this one: that the participants have a right to feel proud about themselves and their appearance, regardless of circumstance. Without condoning [the pageant], I think the cancellation shows how Khmer society is often leaning towards modern and foreign concepts, only to snap back to what [it] feels [is] more traditional and ’safe’.

CAAI News Media posts a reader's reaction, originally printed in a letter to the Phnom Penh Post editor. The reader questions whether or not the beauty pageant format is empowering:

As for beauty, whose concept of beauty is being promoted? I visited the Web site and found the women from different villages in halter tops and short dresses, which may or may not be the clothing that they would usually wear, but it seemed out of place. Are the organisers, while completely well-meaning, pushing a Western interpretation of “empowerment” where beauty and liberation is equated with being sexy and showing skin? I would have rather liked to see the women wearing something they chose, Western or traditional Khmer, modern or conservative, which made them feel their most beautiful.

At Details are Sketchy, there is news that Traavik has left Cambodia, but that he plans on moving forward with the pageant, via an online vote. Above is a photo of pageant contestant Miss Siem Reap from the pageant website.

Norwegian organizer of 'Miss Landmine' contest in Cambodia arrives home after safety fears

Tuesday, August 11, 2009
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

OSLO — The Norwegian organizer of a "Miss Landmine" beauty pageant in Cambodia says safety concerns pushed him to return home after government officials shut down the contest.

Morten Traavik says he returned to Oslo on Monday after Cambodian officials made what he described as threats to his safety.

Cambodian officials cancelled the Miss Landmine contest Aug. 3, saying it "would make a mockery of Cambodia's land mine victims."

The Miss Landmine Web site says the pageant aims to empower land mine survivors and raise awareness about the dangers of land mines. Traavik said he plans to continue the contest on the Web site.

The first Miss Landmine pageant, in Angola in 2008, was criticized by international aid organizations for being demeaning.

Govt blocks meeting with [Miss Landmine] contestants

Miss Battambang, Dos Sopheap. (Photo by: Gorm K Gaare / Miss Landmine 2009)

Thursday, 06 August 2009
James O'Toole
The Phnom Penh Post

"If they refuse to let me meet with Cambodian citizens ... as a private person, that is an even more blatant example of an authoritarian system," Morten Traavik, Miss Landmine organizer

THE organiser of the ill-fated Miss Landmine pageant still wants to show his appreciation to the contestants, despite being told by government officials that a meeting with the women would be "absolutely out of the question".

The Ministry of Social Affairs issued a decree on Sunday banning organiser Morten Traavik from staging the event, which had been intended to celebrate land mine survivors.

Traavik said the ministry has since instructed its provincial offices not to assist any of the women in travelling to Phnom Penh to meet with him, where he was planning to host a dinner and give each of them a gift of US$200.

"If they refuse to let me meet with Cambodian citizens ... as a private person, that is an even more blatant example of an authoritarian system," Traavik said.

Despite these frustrations, Traavik plans to comply with the government decree, although the Miss Landmine Web site, hosted on foreign soil, will remain online.

"I'm a Norwegian citizen.... But for my Cambodian friends and partners, I have to put their well-being in front of everything else," he said.

On Wednesday, the Cambodian Disabled People's Organisation (CDPO) issued a statement in support of the government ban. CDPO officials had previously collaborated with Traavik on the pageant.

"We would like to express our gratitude for the valuable recommendations of ... [Minister of Social Affairs] Ith Sam Heang, who offered his timely advice to the CDPO," the statement read.

CDPO's executive director, Ngin Saorath, said that the organisation works closely with the ministry on a variety of projects and must maintain good relations. "What the government decides, we have to respect," he said.

Traavik was unsurprised by the CDPO's reversal, saying that their statement was written "in full understanding" with him.

Ngin Saorath, however, downplayed the significance of the controversy. "It doesn't mean this is the end of the rights of people with disabilities," he said.

Cambodia cancels landmine pageant

Sou Yeu, 35, is the candidate from the Kompong Cham region

Monday, 3 August 2009
BBC News

A beauty pageant for landmine victims has been cancelled by the Cambodian government, which branded it an insult to disabled people.

Authorities said the contest, due to launch on Friday, would damage "the dignity and honour" of participants.

Twenty women were to have competed for the title of Miss Landmine and the prize of a high-tech prosthetic limb.

Norwegian organiser Morten Traavik expressed disappointment, but said the contest would go ahead on the internet.

He said the result would be announced on 31 December. The website shows photos of the contestants, with missing limbs, wearing crowns and dresses. They are aged from 18 to 48.

Between four and six million landmines are thought to have been laid in Cambodia during its three decades of civil war.

'Mockery'

Mr Traavik - who launched the first Miss Landmine pageant in Angola two years ago - said his contest was intended to raise awareness about the issue and empower those whose lives had been affected by the explosive devices.

"I'm not looking forward to breaking the news to the 20 candidates involved, as I know they will be very disappointed in the lack of support from Cambodian authorities," he told AFP news agency.

Photographs of the participants were to have been shown in an exhibition in the capital, Phnom Penh.

But government spokesman Khieu Khanarith said the competition would "make a mockery of Cambodia's landmine victims".

"The government does not support this contest," he said.

Government and NGO teams are working to clear the country's landmines, but swathes of contaminated land remain in western border regions.

In 2007, more than 350 people were killed or injured in blasts from landmines or unexploded ordnance, Landmine Monitor said.

Cambodian "Miss Landmine" pageant organizers appeal government ban

Aug 3, 2009
DPA

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.

A beauty pageant with a difference [... the contest was banned by Hun Xen's order]

After losing a leg to a landmine, Song Kosal became involved in the campaign to ban the weapons. (Photo: Jared Ferrie / The National)

August 02. 2009
Jared Ferrie, Foreign Correspondent
The National (UAE)

PHNOM PENH - Song Kosal’s life has so far taken her from the rice paddies of rural Cambodia, where she lost a leg to a landmine at the age of five, to the White House to present a petition urging the US to sign a treaty banning landmines.

On Friday she will embark on yet another journey when she takes part in the Miss Landmine competition, a beauty pageant for victims of landmines. Ms Kosal will be vying for the title along with 20 other women who have lost limbs to landmines left over from Cambodia’s civil war. The winner will be crowned in a ceremony in December and will receive a custom-made prosthetic limb.

Although she already has a prosthetic leg, it does not fit properly and it is painful to use, so she walks with a crutch instead. While a prosthetic leg designed especially for her would make walking much easier, the prize is not her reason for participating in the contest.

“I want to try to get people to pay attention to women with disabilities and to not discriminate. People with disabilities can do anything,” she said. “And if we do this project we can raise the issue of the ban [on landmines].”

Miss Landmine is the brainchild of Morten Traavik, a Norwegian actor and theatre director. He launched the first pageant last year in Angola, which is one of the three most heavily mined countries in the world, along with Cambodia and Afghanistan.

Mr Traavik was staying at the family home of his then girlfriend in Angola’s capital, Luanda, in 2003, just one year after the end of the country’s civil war.

“There was still a very palpable sense of a state of emergency,” he said. The streets were strewn with garbage, buildings were pockmarked with bullet holes, and of course there were thousands of amputees, victims of landmines that peppered the countryside. During his visit, Mr Traavik got to know some of the neighbourhood children and they asked him to be a judge at a contest they were organising called Miss “Beco”, meaning Miss Backstreet.

“It was such a wonderful event,” Mr Traavik recalled. “A narrow back alley was the catwalk. The women were of all shapes, sizes, nuances of brown and black. It was a very inclusive event. It made me see how uncomplicated it can be, a playful celebration of life and beauty.”

The experience stuck with him and before long Mr Traavik came up with the idea of organising a similar event to raise awareness about landmines, which are currently banned by 156 countries but continue to kill and maim decades after the end of armed conflicts. His idea was met with scepticism if not outright disgust by many of the international organisations he approached for funding.

“Some people have a purely gut reaction that all beauty pageants are bad no matter if they have a higher purpose,” said Mr Traavik, who said many people he talked to could not get past the concept of a pageant as “sleazy old men voting for young dancing babes in bathing suits”.

But the Angolan government and local community groups gave their support and after applying to the Norwegian Arts Council a few times he finally received a grant.

The Cambodian government, however, yesterday urged the cancellation of the event, Agence France-Presse reported. In a letter to organisers, the ministry of social affairs said: “The ministry asks the people who organise this contest to stop this action … for protecting … the honour and dignity of people with disabilities.”

While Miss Landmine is a far cry from the average pageant, it does follow the traditional aesthetic of beauty contests. The competition will kick off with the launch of a photo exhibit and a glossy magazine featuring contestants photographed against backdrops of beaches and Cambodia’s famed ancient temples. People throughout the world can cast votes online for their favourite candidate at www.miss-landmine.org/cambodia. Those votes will be taken into account by judges who will decide the winner at the December event, which will feature contestants on a catwalk in gowns and a brief interview conducted by an MC.

According to the Miss Landmine magazine, Ms Kosal lost her leg to a Gyata 64 anti-personnel mine, which was manufactured in Hungary and sold for about US$15 (Dh55).

Ms Kosal said she could not remember the incident, but her mother, who was working in a rice paddy at the time, told her that she was collecting firewood when she stepped on the mine. Her story is common in Cambodia, which is littered with mines left behind after a two-decade long war between government troops backed by Vietnam and Khmer Rouge rebels.

“I am very angry at these people who put landmines there,” said Ms Kosal. “But I am happy that I have the chance to join the campaign to challenge countries like the US that have not signed the treaty.”

The 1997 Mine Ban Treaty has yet to be signed by 37 countries, including the UAE. Ms Kosal is a youth ambassador for the International Campaign to Ban Landmines, a global advocacy network. In 2001, she travelled to Washington, DC, to present a petition containing 263,000 signatures to Colin Powell, who was serving as the secretary of state in the administration of George W Bush.

“I liked him, the way he spoke, the way he acted,” she said, but added that Mr Powell said the US would sign the treaty, which it has not done. “I was upset that he promised me, then he forgot what he said to me.”

Mr Traavik noted that the US, along with China and Russia, are major producers of weapons including landmines, and none of them have signed the treaty, also known as the Ottawa Accord. According to Landmine Monitor, a civil society group that tracks progress made in eliminating landmines, those three countries have by far the biggest stockpiles, with about 145 million antipersonnel mines between them.

“It’s not a coincidence that these countries unwilling to sign the Ottawa Accord are also the biggest weapons producers,” he said. “Of course there is a powerful arms industry and a powerful arms lobby that does not want to lose money.”

That is why it is important to keep pressuring such countries by bringing attention to the issue in any way possible, he said, even if it means challenging commonly held assumptions about the evils of beauty pageants.

Cambodia bans Miss Landmine Contest

PHNOM PENH, Aug 02, 2009 (Xinhua) -- Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen agreed to ban Miss Landmine competition, to be held on Aug. 7, after the request from minister of social works, veterans and youth re-habitation, local media reported on Monday.