Overseeing beauty contests is getting ugly: culture department

It said many pageants are organized illicitly while others get approval but do not stick to the script.

Recently the department sanctioned violations by the organizers of the 2022 Miss Peace Vietnam and Miss Teen Vietnam contests.

Among the many difficulties in managing beauty contests it listed are that most have multiple rounds (qualification, semi-final and final) and each could be held in a different locality.

In the past, the organizers of licensed national beauty pageants by the Department of Performing Arts would send notices to localities where the contests would take place.

According to the current regulations, organizers only need approval from the local people’s committee to hold a pageant. However, the rules don’t state how each locality can give permission for the contest and each round.

The report recommended that the Ministry of Finance Culture, Sports and Tourism should provide more specific guidance to localities.

It said sanctioning violations too is difficult in the absence of specific instructions.

The decree regulating the issue has a lot of language that needs to be made clearer since this causes problems with how art shows and beauty contests are run and makes it hard to regulate them, it said.

New pageants are being added at a dizzying rate after the government eased regulations in February 2021.

In the past there were only two licensed national beauty pageants in a year and a few smaller ones. The number has now increased 10-fold.