A Ugandan woman offended by the recently-launched Miss Curvy Uganda beauty pageant (and the minister’s declaration that Uganda’s curvaceous women should be used to attract tourists) has launched an online campaign to have the beauty pageant petitioned and scrapped.
Ms Primrose Nyonyozi Murungi has used her Facebook account to express her disapproval of the new pageant, to call on the tourism minister to apologize for his remarks, and to call upon all Uganda women who disagree with the pageant to join her and make the campaign a success.
The Miss Curvy Uganda pageant was unveiled in Kampala yesterday by the State Minister for Tourism, Mr Godfrey Kiwanda, but it has since received a lot of stick, more so for the minister’s comments while launching it, whereupon he said that “We have naturally endowed nice looking women that are amazing to look at. Why don’t we use these people as a strategy to promote our tourism industry?”
Ms Murungi wrote on her Facebook wall: “I personally feel attacked. This is degrading of women. In a country where women are grabbed by men while walking on the streets and now they have legalised it by making them tourist attractions is not fair.They are objectifying us and reducing women to nothing. Please sign this petition for ministry of tourism to take down the Miss Curvy challenge and offer an apology to the public as well.