Preparing to take the stage representing Ethiopia at the Miss World pageant, Ruth Yirgalem Weldesilasie thinks of her sister, who was abducted and murdered ahead of the contest.
“I’m going to change my pain to my purpose,” the 25-year-old told AFP in Vietnam’s coastal Nha Trang city, as 111 contestants gathered for the Saturday night pageant finale.
This summer, Ruth’s 29-year-old elder sister Kidusan Yirgalem Weldesilasie was kidnapped for ransom — disappearing from her side as she prepared for the global beauty contest.
Kidusan was discovered dead, her remains split between two suitcases, in late July. Ruth’s ex-boyfriend and her sister’s partner are among 10 arrested suspects, according to local media reports.
Violence against women and girls is endemic in Ethiopia’s deeply patriarchal society.
Ruth hopes that by defying her grief to travel to Vietnam, she has found a platform to highlight its wrongs.
“I’ve been wanting to do this for a lifetime,” she said.
Ahead of her departure, Ruth said she thought to herself that while she cannot bring her sister back, “if I go, there are things that I will do”.
Saturday’s event will be the 75th anniversary edition of the world’s oldest beauty pageant.
The industry has in the past been criticised for reducing women to objects of glamour, undermining the feminist cause.
But in more recent decades contests have focused on the charity and activist work of contenders — while still staging all-colourful theatrical performances.
‘Dignity’
On a break from rehearsals outside a hotel where she lodges with fellow competitors, Ruth told AFP of the stark issues she hopes her presence will highlight.
Her social impact projects focus on children’s mental wellbeing and maternal health.
When you heal a woman, “you give her dignity back”, she said. “You give her another life.”
But travelling Ethiopia, she has seen many other women’s issues requiring advocacy.
UN data shows nearly 20 million women in the country of 130 million people were married or in a union before the age of 18.
Female genital mutilation rates, though declining, are nearly 50 percent for women between the ages of 15 and 49.
A petition calling on the government to declare violence against women a “national crisis” has been signed by nearly 170,000 people.
Decades of instability and a 2020-2022 war in the country’s north have worsened the lives of legions of women.
The root cause of all the problems is the same: women treated as objects.
Putting a price on women’s lives
When the kidnappers of Ruth’s sister called to demand their ransom, the point hit home.
“Imagine the person that you care for most has a price one day — you’re being asked for a price”, Ruth told AFP. “It was hard, very hard.”
Ruth will be mourning in the spotlight, a counterintuitive choice that she battled her emotional instincts to make.
“I know when I go back home tomorrow, I’m going to sit on my couch and try to process everything and cry my eyes out,” she said.
But she is motivated by the memory of her sister.
As a child, her family would tell her: “You are the one for your sister. You are the one who is going to protect her.”
She sees taking the stage in Vietnam as a way to serve the larger sisterhood of women, even if her own sibling is lost.
“I want women to think beyond what they are going through,” she said.
“I want to show the world that even when the world is being hard on you, you can also make it.”
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