So, is the Miss Landmine beauty pageant, recently held in Angola, an example of awareness raising or exploitation? Certainly the first response is to be shocked, and maybe disturbed, but that initial impression should give way to an understanding of the larger issues at stake involving not only the self esteem of these young women, but also the realities of landmines and the devastation they cause throughout the world, perhaps no where worse than in Angola. Next year's pageant is scheduled for Cambodia.
