If not for poor-quality tattoos on the ankles of some contestants, lack of air conditioning and the presence of uniformed female guards around the doors, it would seem like a normal beauty pageant. But the Miss Prisoner contest in Rio de Janeiro's Talavera Bruce prison is one of a kind, as is the penitentiary itself in a country notorious for inhuman conditions in its prisons. "Rescuing woman's self-esteem" was the slogan that hung above the walkway where 17 women out of 310 Talavera Bruce prisoners paraded on Friday. And at the very least, it helped to boost self-esteem momentarily. The women looked radiant wearing evening frocks while those who watched cheered them.
The contestants catwalked in denim shorts, then in beach skirts and in long dresses. In the intermissions, girls danced to Madonna and rap.
In the country that gave us the lambada they're dancing to Madonna and rap? To me, that's in the same category as Frenchies drinking ripple, or Australians going to New Jersey for the beaches...
The beauty contest is the fruit of efforts by the prison's two-year old administration that started creating jobs for prisoners and bringing a sort of cultural life behind bars. "It was wonderful for all of us as it fills us with spirit to endure the suffering that we have here," said Maria Aguilera, a Bolivian serving a term for drug trafficking. She didn't win the Miss title, but the blond woman in a long brown cocktail dress said she was proud to participate. "I feel proud representing my country today," she said.
"... here in the calaboose..."
There are 22 foreign nationals in Talavera Bruce, nearly all convicted of drug trafficking. More than a half of all prisoners are serving time for the same offense. Although Brazilians dominated the beauty contest
... as is only right...
and two slim local girls that could easily be mistaken for professional models took the second and third spots, a buxom 25-year-old from Portugal, Elisabeth Sardinha, won the Miss Prisoner tiara. "It was a very useful event as many girls stayed here doing nothing, not working, and now they are getting involved in something beautiful," she said with a charming smile.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
