ISLAMABAD: Caretaker Prime Minister Anwaar-ul-Haq Kakar has directed the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to contact the UAE government to get information about a company organising a beauty contest to select contestants to represent Pakistan in the Miss Universe Pageant without any approval of the Pakistani government, local media reported on Friday.
Earlier, PM Kakar asked the Intelligence Bureau (IB) to find out who’s arranging this beauty contest and using Pakistan’s name for an international event. The IB gave its report to the prime minister.
The report says that a business group in Dubai called Yugen Publishing and Marketing has the rights to represent Pakistan in the 2023 contest. They made a website to get applications from Pakistani women aged 24-28, regardless of their marital status. This Dubai-based Yugen Group also has the rights for Miss Universe Bahrain and Miss Universe Egypt.
The IB report tells us that these Pakistani contestants were picked through a vote from 200 applicants worldwide. One of them was supposed to win the competition in an event set for Thursday, September 14, at 7 pm UAE time, and it was going to be shown on the Miss Universe YouTube channel.
The report also mentions that in Dubai, the Yugen Group is sponsoring the event, and a person named Josh Yugen is the national director of Miss Universe Pakistan. They partnered with a voting app called ‘Choicely’ so that fans can vote for their favorite candidates. Voting ended on Wednesday, September 13, 2023. The winner will represent Pakistan at the Miss Universe pageant, which has more than 60 countries participating. The grand finale is on November 18, 2023, in El Salvador.
The report says that even though the organizers claim that the contestants represent their countries, that’s not really true. According to the Miss Universe Organization (MUO) website, ‘national directors’ are businesses or companies that apply to MUO to get franchises for a specific country. They can do this by paying a fee of around $1,000 and meeting certain requirements. They don’t need permission from the government of that country; they just need to bring in people from that country to compete.
Before this, Caretaker Federal Minister for Information and Broadcasting Murtaza Solangi said on social media that the government and state of Pakistan are represented by official government institutions, and no non-government person or group can represent the government.
This issue was raised by Ansar Abbasi, the Editor Investigation at The News, on social media, and religious scholar Mufti Taqi Usmani also called on the government to take action.
Senator Mushtaq Ahmed Khan reacted strongly, calling it an insult to Pakistan and the exploitation of Pakistani women.
Earlier reports suggested that five Pakistani women were going to participate in the Miss Universe contest. The top 5 finalists were Hira Inam, Jessica Wilson, Malika Alvi, Sabrina Wasim, and Erica Rabin. Erica was chosen to represent Pakistan in the final event scheduled for November.
