Erbil, Kurdistan, Iraq- Kurdistan region has crowned the third Miss Kurdistan, though the beauty contest took place without bikini-clad in the Kurdish capital of Erbil on Thursday.
The pageant was sponsored by the Kurdistan Tourism Board, Babylon Company, KOREK Telecom and Erbil Rotana. The winner, Zhalia Sirwan, is a 20-year old college student from Sulaimani city.
Over 70 Kurdish women applied for the Miss Kurdistan 2016 beauty pageant while only 11 candidates have been chosen as the event takes place on Thursday. The third annual Miss Kurdistan beauty pageant raises questions of what is beauty, feminism, and the role of women in Kurdish society.
The event was hosted by Babylon FM’s Saz Aso and Noor Matti. Matti praised Kurdish women to the 400 people in attendance at the event, “In Kurdistan, I love how families are really close together and the mother is the head of the family.”
Organizers of the event also hoped to show to the world that life in the Kurdistan Region goes on, despite the financial crisis and the frontline with the Islamic State just down the road.
