Miss World Bangladesh winner confirms marriage rumours

Nikita Rubaiyat

Published at 09:49 PM October 03, 2017Last updated at 08:40 AM October 04, 2017

The new winner will be announced in a press conference at Hotel Pan Pacific Sonargaon on Wednesday

Jannatul Nayeem Avril has at last come clean about the rumours of her marriage on Facebook Live. After a dramatic finale of Lovello Miss World Bangladesh 2017 on September 29, Avril was crowned as the winner and was set to represent Bangladesh in the upcoming Miss World beauty pageant in China. However, the drama intensified when the winner’s wedding pictures were leaked on social media. According to the eligibility requirements of Miss World pageant, a contestant must never be legally married or married otherwise.

In light of this rule, Jannatul Nayeem is now officially disqualified from the competition. But it appears that Avril is not one to go down quietly. Tomorrow, the new winner will be announced in a press conference at Hotel Pan Pacific Sonargaon, and just on the day before Avril spoke up in a memorable Facebook Live session which threw some burning questions at the entire social system of Bangladesh and even the Miss World pageant. So let’s take a look at what the real queen bee of this whole conundrum had to say about it.

“All I wanted was to prove that a 16-year-old girl who was married off against her will can come as far as I have, despite the social impediments.” Avril said, claiming that the marriage took place because her father forced her into it. She claims to have run away from the wedding but this one incident has been haunting her forever.
“It’s funny how our society wouldn’t laugh or make trolls about it when a 16-year-old adolescent is married off, but it will make fun of me for not caving into the marriage. I had not faced this much controversy when I started off as a biker,” said Avril. The 20-year-old divorcee admits that her fault was in thinking that she could become Miss World despite being a divorcee. She confesses that she thought she could make something of herself against all odds but regrets the fact that everyone failed to see past her marital status into her talent and struggle.

Avril says her plans ahead would involve working for women in Bangladesh. Her comment on the lost title was, “I earned this crown through dedication and hard work. It may be taken away now, but my achievements cannot be undone.”

Avril’s questions indeed point finger at a faulty system. In a pageant where the motto remains “Beauty with a purpose” since 1951, yet the eligibility confines itself within marital status, virginal beauty and bust size, what remains of a woman as an individual? The rules may have made sense back in the 1950s, but they are frankly laughable in this era. By laughing at women like Avril, aren’t we in turn feeding the fly in the ointment? Question remains to the readers.