*19-year-old Miss Pacific Islands beauty queen Leoshina Kariha of Papua New Guinea is speaking out about the racist insult that was hurled at her during a pageant in Tonga over the weekend.
According to Yahoo News Australia, Kariha was delivering a speech on stage at the Miss Heilala beauty pageant when someone from the VIP section of the audience yelled: “You’re black and ugly – disgusting.”
It was later revealed that the offensive statement was allegedly spewed by a well-known Tongan politician, face2faceafrica.com reports.
Kariha took to Facebook to speak about the painful moment while also expressing gratitude to the people of Tonga for their support.
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“Thank you for all of your support. It was painful to receive the comment. But my chaperone and I have been welcomed here by the Ministry of Tourism and by the people and we’ve been embraced by them,” she said (watch clip above).
She also made clear that she won’t allow the incident to taint her view of the country.
“I will not let one comment from a single person destroy the very good relationship that the Kingdom of Tonga and my people of Papua New Guinea have,” she said. “And there really should be no division amongst Melanesians, Polynesians and Micronesians; we should be one united Pacific.”
Another controversial moment from the pageant occurred when the reigning Miss Heilala, Kalo Funganitao, slammed organizers for mistreatment, describing her reign as “tormenting.”
Officials attempted to cut her microphone off and loud music was played over her – but she pushed forward.
Watch the clip below.
Meanwhile, UNICEF in Papua New Guinea has tapped Kariha as their first ever Youth Advocate.
“UNICEF stands for the rights and wellbeing of children, youth and women. These are our groups of the population whose voices are not heard enough and more needs to be done with them and for them,” she said after her appointment. “They need to be involved in discussions that affect them, because they may be able to see how they themselves can contribute ideas and innovative ways of doing things to help themselves.”
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