Child beauty pageants ‘a pedophile’s holiday’ – senior priest

A Russian Orthodox Church archpriest has compared the competitions to Sodom and Gomorrah

An archpriest of the Russian Orthodox Church has criticized parents who enter their kids in child beauty pageants, describing such events as a “pedophile’s holiday.”

In a video published on social media on Sunday, Andrey Tkachev compared competitions in which small girls are evaluated on their physical appearance to Sodom and Gomorrah, the biblical cities that were destroyed by God for their wickedness.

"To be frank, child beauty pageants are a pedophile’s holiday. A five-year-old… wiggles like a grown woman, and the jury consisting of 60-year-old fat mugs drool on her,” he said.

The cleric recalled that he had seen girls participating in such an event when he visited a television studio to take part in a different program. “They were all dressed like ballerinas and had makeup like grown-up women, with bright lips,” he said.

Read more

"Little girls are being dressed like prostitutes… It is their own mothers who dressed them like little prostitutes. They put makeup on them. They made them learn stupid poems and songs. Now, they will compete on stage, with old men looking at them. And the mothers will sit in the audience and applaud their daughters,” the archpriest added.

These parents have “completely backward thinking, they are total idiots, they do not understand anything,” he claimed.

Despite concerns over their psychological and emotional effect on kids, child beauty pageants continue to be organized in Russia, with events like Mini Miss and Mister Russia attracting hundreds of participants from across the country. Some contests have also been held in an online format in recent years, making them even more accessible.

In 2014, a draft law banning child beauty pageants was introduced in the Russian parliament, but did not pass. Back then, controversial MP Vitaly Milonov said such competitions “crush a child’s psyche,” arguing that children should not be compared by their appearance “like dogs.”

READ MORE: Russian blogger jailed for pro-Nazi videos and religious insults

Local authorities in several Russian regions, including the Republic of Tatarstan and Krasnodar Region, have banned beauty pageants for kids from being held on their territory.