Reigning Miss Ghana Queen, Miss Margaret Dery has reacted to concerns about scandals beauty queens are subjected to after winning the crown.
The organizers of the beauty pageant, who have been criticized severely for subjecting these beauty queens to lots of torture seem unbothered and keep threatening them with suits if they open up to the public with regards to the hardship they are made to go through.
Past Beauty Queens have revealed the unpardonable experiences they had as beauty queens and it’s evident there are damning issues with the pageant.
Reacting on Twitter, the 2017 winner of Miss Ghana, Margaret Dery labelled the Miss Ghana beauty pageant brand as a big shame.
She advised other ladies whose sole interest is to be crowned a Queen to be circumspect since there is absolutely nothing positive about the crown.
According to her, being a Miss Ghana Queen has been one of the worse experiences of her life.
“Being a miss Ghana queen has honestly been one of the worse experiences of my life, yeah, I know it looks good on the outside but it’s just one big sham on the inside. All that glitters is not gold. Ladies, you don’t need a crown on your head to succeed.
“Never be afraid to raise your voice for honesty, truth and compassion against injustice, lying and greed. No more will I cover up for anyone that doesn’t deserve it. The whole world will know the truth soon.” Margaret Dery posted on Twitter.
Check her tweet below!
Being a miss Ghana queen has honestly been one of the worse experiences of my life,yeah,I know it looks good on the outside,but it’s just one big sham on the inside. All that glitters is not gold. Ladies,you don’t need a crown on your head to succeed.
— Mag (@Queenmwin) July 28, 2018
Never be afraid to raise your voice for honesty ,truth and compassion against injustice,lying and greed.
No more will I cover up for anyone that doesn’t deserve it. The whole world will know the truth soon.— Mag (@Queenmwin) July 29, 2018
Read some of the experiences shared by previous queens.
Winner of Miss Ghana 2010, Stephanie Karikari revealed how Inna Mariam Patti refused to put her on a billboard because her appearance did not please her senses.
According to her, the organiser declined to project her with the explanation that “sponsors had told her that I was not beautiful enough to be on the billboard.”
The revelation has come at a time some past winners of the event as well as Stephanie herself, have opened the lid on some dehumanising treatments they are made to go through including sexual and verbal abuses.
Stephanie Karikari
Stephanie won the 2010 pageant organised then by Media Whizz Kids but a transfer of ownership rights to Exclusive Events Ghana means she would have to work with a new management team headed by Inna Maria Patty.
She told host of the Super Morning Show on Joy FM, Kojo Yankson on Monday that although she was not sexually abused, she never had a good working relationship with Madam Patty.
“Inna Patty and I never had a relationship right from day one…we couldn’t agree on anything because she wanted to use it for her personal benefit.
“Being the first to go through Inna I had issues but not the sex thing with Inna. It’s unfortunate that queens after me have gone through worse [because] I thought I was going through the worst,” she said.
The experiences
Her other colleagues, Guiseppina Nana Akua Baafi (Miss Ghana 2013) and Antoinette Delali Kemavor (Miss Ghana 2015) however, said there were attempts to make them sleep with influential men in order to meet their task of raising funds for the organisers.
According to Giuseppina, she was asked a couple of times by the organiser to attend private meetings with influential with men as late as 11pm to talk about her herself and her project but she declined because she felt “it was too late”. They were usually told to “be nice and talk about you,” she said.
“I never got to go to those meetings because it was late,” Giuseppina stated.
She also revealed how she raised a sum of Ȼ10,000 that she was tasked to raise by organisers each month to finance and social project which she never saw being used for such purpose. She decided to abandon the project because she never saw what the first Ȼ10,000 she raised was used for.
Stephanie Karikari (left), Antoinette Kemavor (middle) and Giusepinna Barfi
Giusepinna abandoned the task and opted to soliciting for products and items from organisations to donate to orphanages instead.
Antoinette shared a similar experience said Inna Patty tasked her to raise a sum of $10,000 to pay her registration fee to enable her contest the Miss World pageant in 2016.
She managed to raise just half of that and the organisers topped it up for her to participate in the global event.
The beauty queen recounted how she was asked to have dinner with a wealthy man in his home and when she thought she had to leave because “it was after 10pm” the man “passed a comment that ‘I thought you were sleeping here’,” she told Kojo Yankson.
Asked why she did not report to the person who arranged the said meeting, Antoinette retorted: “I didn’t ask Inna Patty about it because I wasn’t expecting her to tell me why she did that.”