The Miss World beauty and the beasts

NATASHA WALTER argues that the power of female protest - at home and abroad - should not be forgotten in the furore over the Miss World contest in Nigeria.

As soon as the organisers of the Miss World contest decided to hold their contest in Nigeria, they must have realised there might be a mismatch between the lighthearted glitz of the competition and the situation for some women in the host country.

In northern states of Nigeria, where Islamic Sharia law has recently been imposed, women face barbaric forms of injustice.

Two years ago, a teenager was publicly flogged for the crime of adultery after being raped by three men.

Last year, the first sentence of stoning for adultery was imposed, on Safiya Husseini.

She was pardoned on a technicality, but another woman, Amina Lawal, is living under sentence of death by stoning because she gave birth to a child after having sex with a man who promised to marry her.

When her daughter, Wasila, is weaned, Amina has been told that she (Amina) will be "buried up to her neck and pelted with heavy rocks until she dies".

Those Miss World contestants who have decided not to go to Nigeria have realised that Amina Lawal's experiences make the tussle for a paste crown and a tinsel sash look, at best, meaningless.

Contestants from Denmark, Switzerland, Austria and Costa Rica have decided to pull out, and others are considering similar action.

Sylvie Teller, who was to go as Miss France, said: "When a woman faces the most agonising death, there are more important things in life than winning a crown for being beautiful."

New Zealand's entrant, Rachel Huljich, supports the stand behind the boycott but intends to parade.

The 18-year-old Aucklander last week adopted the positions of the European Parliament and Amnesty International, which do not support a boycott, and repeated her prediction that the sentence would be overturned.

"Amina herself said, 'Let them come'," Huljich said. "I think my voice will be heard more by going."

She expects more will be achieved by a statement pageant organisers will read on behalf of the contestants at the start of the December 7 competition condemning the sentence.

Contestants are also being asked to bring petitions opposing the stoning and Ms Huljich has set one up on website www.saveamina.com.

By yesterday afternoon, it had attracted 5173 signatures.

But Ms Huljich's stand aside, it is already easy for sceptics to brush off the boycott.

For a start, it is hard to give serious attention to anything to do with Miss World. The only people who do take the contest seriously are probably those who still see it as the purveyor of demeaning stereotypes, which hardly makes it the easiest context in which to mount a vanguard action on behalf of oppressed women.

Most people are unable to take the contest remotely seriously, seeing it merely as camp entertainment dressed up in absurd language about "beauty with a purpose".

Which also makes it an odd stage for an international protest over human rights.

And Miss Denmark, the most forceful of the boycotters, makes an unusual feminist heroine. Masja Juel is a hairdressing student from a small Danish town with a smile that could launch a thousand toothpaste advertisements.

But should we judge this campaign merely on appearances? These women have made a heartfelt effort to inform themselves about the case of Amina Lawal and to act in her support.

I believe we should applaud them. Even if Miss World looks like a joke to many of us, for some women it looked like a prize that was hard to throw away. But they did it.

As Masja Juel said in one interview: "I knew I had to make a choice. It was hard; I had high hopes for what the competition would bring me. But I know I made the right choice."

Still, many people who have sympathy with the boycotters have been asking what kind of effect such a protest can have.

Sharia law in Nigeria is enforced only in northern states, not by the central Government, and President Olusegun Obasanjo, who is a Christian, has said he is not in favour of the sentence imposed on Amina Lawal.

If her appeal reaches the Supreme Court, the verdict will almost certainly be overturned.

Some observers have said that when a democratically elected President is trying to face down extremists, other countries should proffer support, not more knocks.

Amina Lawal herself does not, apparently, support the boycott. She is reported to have told one charity the Miss World contestants should continue with their visit.

"I know things will work out because people are coming from all over the world to support me."

But women in Nigeria, who can read the situation in their country better than most well-meaning Western commentators, have said they believe that the boycott will have a positive effect.

Hurera Akilu-Atta is one of Amina Lawal's lawyers and works for Baobab, a women's human rights organisation.

"When we heard that participants were boycotting this event, we felt happy and hopeful," she said. "We believe that the action should help Amina Lawal."

Amina Lawal is an illiterate, powerless individual living in hiding under threat of death in a volatile country, so it is hardly surprising that she has not spoken out in favour of a boycott.

But, as Akilu-Atta says, the point of a boycott is to increase pressure on President Obasanjo to overturn the sentence.

"The support has been growing internationally. But it is important that women throughout the world go on bringing people's attention to the case."



This is the point of such a protest. You don't have to take Miss World too seriously to realise the boycott can be effective as a symbolic act, to mobilise attention for a case that was in danger of slipping off our radar.

Like the petition on behalf of Amina Lawal that was organised by Amnesty International and gathered more than a million signatures, a high-profile boycott reminds Governments throughout the world that their people want them to keep the pressure on the Nigerian Government.

Glad though I am to see this growing international support for Amina Lawal, the real support that she can count on comes from women inside her country.

Sharia law is a recent introduction in to Nigerian states, and thousands of people have died in civil unrest against it.

Lawal can count on support throughout the country, and so far, her life has been saved by Nigerian women who are protecting her and bringing her appeal through the courts.

If you listen to these women, you realise how absurd it is to suggest, as some people do, that the ideal of human rights is incompatible with certain cultures.

Hauwa Ibrahim is the female lawyer who has led Amina Lawal's defence and who has kept her in hiding for the last few months to protect her from extremists who want to take the law into their own hands.

Ibrahim is a devout Muslim from the north, but in an interview with a Nigerian newspaper last month she said: "The moment we emphasise religion we lose focus. The focus is not religion. The focus is the rule of law."

Such women speak a language of rights spoken by women throughout the world.

As Akilu-Atta said: "What is essential is not just to attack one sentence, but to start to change the lives of women who live in these areas, so that they can have access to education.

"If women can read and be educated, they will not allow Islam to be used as a tool against them."

These women will still be fighting for their ideals when international attention has drifted away. They are the real heroines of this struggle for women's rights.

- INDEPENDENT