VIDEO: Beauty Pageants Or Paradise for Paedophiles

It is common that little beauties go to beauty and hair salons and have their own personal stylists.

The season of children’s beauty pageants in the United States starts in mid-January and raise a plethora of ethical questions, so we explored the subject.

In 1920 eight women took part in the first beauty pageant in Atlantic City when a hotel manager decided to come up with a creative way to make guests prologue their stay in the hotel on Labour Day. The phenomenon has assumed global proportions since.

Children’s beauty pageants began in the 1960s. The children are paraded in sports clothes, evening dresses and demonstrate their singing and dancing talents. The children are judged by their individuality, looks, abilities, posing, perfectionism and self-confidence.

Why do parents what their child to be “Miss Sunshine”?

Back when she was a Harvard student, Hillary Levey conducted a research on child beauty pageants. She visited such events in Connecticut, Florida, Massachusetts and New Hampshire where girls and boys, aged two to six, competed.

Levey primarily wanted to find out why people enter their children into the pageants.

During her research she discovered shocking facts. Children naturally lose their baby teeth and if this happens just before a competition, the parents often have dentists put false teeth in their mouths. Mothers of girls whose hair is too short to form curls and achieve the “Barbie look” often put hair extensions in their hair.

Such things prove that such pageants are not about natural beauty, Levey wrote in the results of her research.

To show off the beauty of one’s child at a pageant is not at all cheap. Parents spend an average of 200 dollars on costumes, but there are also extreme cases when over a thousand dollars are spent on an extravagant evening dress.

It is not rare for little contestants to go to beauty and hair salons and to have their own personal stylists.

One of the most frequent reasons which mothers state when asked why they enter their children in such pageants is that they believe their children will gain self-esteem, learn how to behave when looked at and that such skills will help them climb the social ladder and prepare them for demanding jobs that require developed social skills.

Exhibition for paedophiles? 

Most people and psychologists who wrote about this subject believe that such public display of sexualisation of children who wear make-up, provocative clothes for grown-ups and inappropriate hairstyles, is somewhat perverse and a magnet for paedophiles.

The children’s beauty pageants can also be seen as an exhibition organised for paedophiles in search of victims.

A similar case happened. JonBenet Patricia Ramsey was a six-year-old girl who took part in beauty pageants across the United States.

The girl was found dead in the cellar of her home in Boulder, Colorado, on December 25, 1996. Even though the homicide has not yet been solved, there were several leads that pointed to the fact that it was a sexual attack.

Look at JonBenet in the VIDEO.

Abuse of children 

The abuse of children entails their exploitation, so the question is whether the parents are those who exploit girls who, half-naked, flirt with the panel of judges.

Several research showed that most parents who force their children to take part in such pageants are of lower financial status.

Beauty pageants are one of the fastest growing industries in the United States.

According to research, such competitions can have positive, but also negative consequences for children, depending on the environment and organisation.

For example, Beatriz Gill is a beauty pageant manager, but she forbade the use of make-up and inappropriate outfits and the whole event focused more on a “child” than sexual atmosphere. Still, most of them not only allow, but encourage excessive outfits, make-up and hairstyles.

It seems that a lot of time will pass before children’s beauty contests become a safe environment for children and give them positive experiences, without premature encounters with sexuality.

See beauty pageants in the VIDEO.