Former beauty queen bats for reform in conduct of pageants

Miss Global 2016 first runner-up Camille Jensen “CJ” Hirro. Instagram / cjsuperhirro

Miss Global 2016 first runner-up Camille Jensen “CJ” Hirro urged authorities to form a body that will govern all pageants after she revealed encounters with rude sponsors in the competition.

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“Pageant directors and organizers should be subjected to yearly reviews for clearance to conduct another pageant and should be penalised for wrongdoings,” Hirro said in an Instagram post on Monday.

Hirro expressed her disappointment over the reality that many beauty queens have been victims of sexual harassment, but remains hopeful for a change as more women speak up.

“As much as it hurts me to learn that more beauty queens have been victims, I am hopeful that changes in the conduct of pageants will soon be done now that more women are speaking up,” she said.

Hirro recounted she was once asked to attend an office blessing that turned out to be a private party with “4 girls in a sea of about 30 drunk men.”

She also narrated how a batch of pageant winners were sent to a sponsor’s house in Forbes and were told “that whoever’s the friendliest gets an LV bag.”

Another instance she shared was two girls who “experienced having to fight off a sponsor who went in their room.”

She said she spoke about this kind of issue many times, even warning beauty queens during question and answer training sessions “not to be scared to call people out.”

“Liar, bitter, ingrate, a has-been, disrespectful, condescending, pabida” — these were some of the names she had been called for being “a staunch advocate of making the pageant world safer for women.”

Nonetheless, Hirro stood her ground and said: “But for a rape survivor like me, nothing would devastate me more than another girl falling victim to sexual predators and I didn’t do anything to stop it.” /jpv

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