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Thomas Frey - Senior Futurist at the DaVinci Institute - Celebrity Keynote
November 19th, 2007 at 8:09 am

Miss Landmine: Beauty Pageant for Angolan Women Mutilated by Mines

After being ravaged by years of civil war, Angola is littered with thousands of landmines all over the country. In 23 years, over 80,000 people had died or lost limbs due to one wrong step.

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To call attention to this problem and to raise funds to eliminate landmines, Norwegian artist Morten Traavik launched a "beauty pageant" called Miss Landmine, where 10 women competed for the title of most beautiful mutilated Angolan woman, and the first prize of a leg prosthesis.

THE MISS LANDMINE MANIFESTO (in no particular order)

* Female pride and empowerment.
* Disabled pride and empowerment.
* Global and local landmine awareness and information.
* Challenge inferiority and/or guilt complexes that hinder creativity- historical, cultural, social, personal, African, European.
* Question established concepts of physical perfection.
* Challenge old and ingrown concepts of cultural cooperation.
* Celebrate true beauty.
* Replace the passive term ‘Victim’ with the active term ‘Survivor’

International aid agencies, however, were not amused – they had called it a "freakshow."

Obviously they didn’t need a leg prosthesis like these unsung beauties did…

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