RIGHTTOBEAMOTHER

The news spread around the globe when Veronika announced the launch of her global initiative #RIGHTTOBEAMOTHER, which aims to change the rules of the world’s four largest beauty pageants — Miss World, Miss Universe, Miss Earth, and Miss International, allow all women to take part irrespective of their social and marital status. Veronika hopes this change will help thousands of women around the world gain access to professional opportunities which they are presently denied.

“The rule is there for the children’s welfare. If you win Miss World, you spend a year traveling the world. It’s a job — you are paid to be a global ambassador. Organisers don’t want to take a mother away from her children for a whole year.”

Angie Beasley

Director of Miss England

Official Terms, Rules and Conditions of Participating in the Miss World

A contestant shall be a person who:

has never been through any ceremony either valid or invalid, and whether civil, religious or tribal, which is recognized as a marriage ceremony in any part of the world;
has never given birth to a child.

Veronika’s call to justice found global support. She received thousands of letters from people who feel that discrimination against women based on their marital and family status must end.

Mothers, wives, divorcees, and widows must have equal access to opportunities for professional development across all industries, including media and entertainment to which pageantry belongs.

Over the course of the campaign, Veronika has harnessed support for her cause from many activists and women’s rights organizations in the UK and the US. Most of her work is currently taking place in London, for this is where Miss World Organization is headquartered.

Veronika’s efforts were noticed by the UK-based human rights lawyers, including The Law Society’ Human Rights Lawyer of the Year 2018, Ravi Naik, as well as other world-class human rights attorneys who have offered help in a legal challenge against Miss World and rare continuing to fight the battle.

In the hope this would be the last fight against the archaic rules established in 1951 when the pageant was conceived, together they launched a legal complaint against Miss World prior to the pageant’s Final in London in December 2019. The complaint was taken to the Equality and Human Rights Commission, Great Britain’s national equality body promoting and upholding equality and human rights ideals and laws.

The legal challenge received vast international media coverage with publications such as The New York Times, Sky News, Fox News, CNN, BBC, ITV, The Telegraph, The Inde- pendent, The Economist raising the issue of maternity-based discrimination to the top of the global media agenda.

Unfortunately, the EHRC ruled that beauty pageants affect only “a very small number of women”. At the same time, in 2019, more than 900 million people watched the Miss World final. This disproves that the pageant industry only involves a small number of women.

Veronika Didusenko did not give up. She launched a petition calling to allow mothers to compete in Miss World and Miss Universe and collected 25,000 signatures globally.

Her advocacy efforts were noticed by UN Women and she was due to travel to the United Nations headquarters in New York to present her case and host a discussion dedicated to maternity-based discrimination. Her further campaigning plans were abruptly disrupted by the global pandemic.

While under quarantine, Veronika registered an NGO as a vehicle of her campaign advocating for maternity rights and against the discrimination of women based on characteristics protected by human rights law.

In early 2021, Veronika’s campaign found support in Ireland where a contestant had pulled out of the competition after questioning the rules. Blue Scannell, a Dublin-based contestant, wrote to the organisers of Miss Ireland to seek explanation of the outdated rules. In response, Miss Ireland organisers suggested to Blue that perhaps it would be best if she didn’t move forward in the competition.

Her plans include further public action calling for Miss World and other international beauty pageants to keep adjusting their rules to reflect the values of diversity and inclusion. Veronika is also looking at launching a legal challenge in Ukraine with the view to re-establish her status as Miss Ukraine 2018. In the case of a positive outcome, this, she hopes, will create a precedent for other national contests funneling competitors to Miss World. Veronika places high hopes on the support of US-based women’s rights groups. She is planning talks with Miss Universe, a New York- headquartered international beauty pageant, which seems to be quicker in adapting to the inclusivity standards of the modern liberal world.

Continuous public appeals to Julia Morley, CEO, Miss World
Legal action against Miss Ukraine, national licensee of Miss World in Ukraine
Maternity rights discussion at the UN Women annual conference in NYC.
Engagement of US-based women’s rights activists and lawyers to put public pressure on Miss Universe to change entry rules.

Veronika Didusenko was born and raised in Kyiv, Ukraine. As a child Veronika endured soul-crushing abuse and bullying from schoolmates because of her weight. Focussed on achieving academic excellence, she was accepted to a highly-selective high school on scholarship terms, later going on to study Mathematics at Taras Shevchenko Kyiv National University. She started her modelling career with the Ukrainian agency Faces at the age of eigh- teen and went after her contracts to Paris, London and Milan for work. When Veronika was a sophomore at university, she had a child. For the next three years she managed to combine studying, modelling, and mothering her son Alex. Her immediate plans, besides #righttobeamother, include further work on her charity project Young Einsteins, which is aimed at helping orphaned children talented in math- ematics access better educational opportunities.

Together with Gloria Allred, a renowned human rights activist and a founding partner of Allred, Maroko & Goldberg law firm, Veronika worked to advance the #righttobeamother legal case and challenge the rules of beauty pageants which discriminate against women who become pregnant. For this purpose, Veronika also cooperated with Andrea Quiroga, who was prevented from applying for entry to Miss World and Miss Universe pageants because she gave birth to her son.

Veronika also worked with Gloria Allred to support Ukraine in its fight against Russian aggression.

Veronika joined Gloria Allred in Ms Allred’s car in the 2022 Los Angeles Pride Parade in support of Ukraine and LGBTQ rights.

Veronika has become one of the loudest voices in the defence of Ukraine against Russian aggression.

A historic decision for the women’s rights movement has been made!

On August 5^th, 2022, the Miss Universe pageant has issued an overwhelming decision:

mothers,
pregnant women,
married women,
divorced women

ARE ALLOWED TO PARTICIPATE IN THE MISS UNIVERSE PAGEANT

Our incredible four-year journey proved that what had been declared unthinkable for the previous 70 years, turned out to be possible. Even more, it has become a rule!

Veronika’s plans:

1. Do everything so that Ukraine and the Ukrainian people win in this unjustified Russian war of aggressionIn progress

2. Together with Gloria Allred and Andrea Quiroga, challenge discriminatory norms of beauty pageants and make sure that women with children and married women are not discriminated against and can participate freelyIn progress

3. Be the face of global cause marketing campaignsSigned a contract with one of the leading American talent and modeling agencies, The Lions 🦁🦁🦁

4. Get an Ivy League degreeWas accepted into the university and program of her dreams, Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA) 🎓👏👏👏