Without lawyers, winners of the Miss Ghana beauty pageant sign contract with the organisers, Inna Patty and her Exclusive Event Ghana company.
A copy of the Miss Ghana contract reveals the absurdity of some of the terms—and also how some of the clauses are constructed to give room for exploitation.
Unfortunately, most of the Miss Ghana winners, are refused access to lawyers by the organisers when it comes to signing what’s obviously an unfair contract.
Three former winners, Miss Ghana 2010-Stephanie Karikari, Miss Ghana 2015-Antoinette Delali Kemavor and Miss Ghana 2013-Giuseppina Nana Akua Baafi mustered the courage to speak about the different layers of exploitation, verbal and sometimes physical abuses and the sort of sexual baits they were used for by Inna Patty.Â
A careful reading of the Contract and Code of Conduct show clearly the existing imbalance of power and gross unfairness of the two documents, to the disadvantage of the Beauty Queens.
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Paragraph 4 of the Code of Conduct requires, as reported that, the winners of Miss Ghana raise GHC10,000 per month, a total of GHC120,000 per annum as part of her role as an ambassador and fund raiser  to raise funds and promote projects under the Miss Ghana Foundation.
Paragraph 1 of the code of conduct states that the Beauty Queens shall be given verbal warning for half an hour lateness to work for the first time; a written warning for the second time and in the event of third time lateness the Queen will forfeit her allowance for the month. In a situation where the lateness persists the Queen could face disciplinary sanctions including being stripped off her title. Â
Interestingly, the Contract prohibits the winners of Miss Ghana from holding the organizers liable for any prize package promised and not honoured or delivered by a sponsor. This means, if the organizers of Miss Ghana promises to give a winner GHC100,000 or a car based on a promise from a sponsor, the winner cannot sue them to claim the said money or car if it’s not honoured.
And since almost all the prize packages are from sponsors; you can hypothetically be left with just a valueless crown on your head as a winner—without any cause of action, even if you were promised millions of things at the beginning of the competition.
Also, the Contract demands that winners of Miss Ghana maintain a body size of 6 to 10 (UK size)—and the Beauty Queens are prohibited by Contract to speak to any media person or house directly or indirectly. This explains why these vulnerable young women were never able to speak out even when they were abused, exploited and mistreated.
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Considering the terms of the Miss Ghana Contract as sighted (below) and also the fact that Giuseppina Baafi, Miss Ghana 2013, was stripped of her title because she failed to sign a contract without her lawyer first looking at it, one can say, the pageant organizers intentionally set off to manipulate the winners on the back of unfair contract terms.
See contract below:
www.primenewsghana.com/Â Ghana News