"Miss Landmines Cambodia, 2009" The Results

The results for the 'Miss Landmines competition, held in Oslo, Norway are in. If you are unfamiliar with the story you can read about it here and vote in the poll to your right. For all the details you can visit the organiser's site here .

Remember, though, that the Cambodian government formally refused the organisers permission for the contest to go ahead and banned all the women from travelling to Phnom Penh to take part.

Third place: Miss Kompong Cham, So Yeu

So Yeu is 37 years old and has three children. She lost her leg to a People's Republic of China manufactured landmine in 1991.

She has ambitions of raising cattle and fish.

Second Place: Miss Takeo, Thou Chorn


Thou Chorn is 32 years old and single. She lost both her legs to a Russian produced landmine in 1998.

Currently she works from home selling cakes but her real ambition is to have a steady job.

First Place: Miss Battambang, Dos Sopheap
 
Dos Sopheap is an 18 year old student who has ambitions to qualify as an accountant. In 1996 she lost her leg to a landmine that had been manufactured in what was previously Yugoslavia.


 
 
First prize was a custom-made prosthetic leg, worth approx USD 20 000 and $500, which Sopheap plans to use to further her studies. The second and third place-getters received $300 each. Both women plan to put this money into starting a business. Wish them luck!

Miss Landmine: Cambodia

"It would damage the “dignity and rights of the disabled," claimed Cambodia's Ministery of Social Affairs some month's ago, as it released its decision to refuse permission for a proposed 'Miss Landmines' pageant to proceed.

And there things stood until the South Norway Museum of Arts agreed to parade photos of the 20 original Cambodian amputee contestants down the catwalk.

Of course a photo isn't anything like the real thing but at least some level of recognition is better than nothing?

But what do you think? Should the pageant have gone ahead?
Vote 'Yes' or 'No' at the top-middle of the page.