24-year-old Ukrainian model Veronika Didusenko, who was stripped of the Miss Ukraine title in 2018 following revelations that she had been previously been married and mothered a son, is now taking legal action in London against the competition’s organisers.
Didusenko, who claims that the organisers of Miss World are breaching the Equalities Act 2010 with their “discriminatory” policies in relation to marital status and maternity, will be represented in court by renowned human rights lawyer Ravi Naik and leading counsel Marie Demitriou QC, according to the model’s Instagram page.
“I don’t want the crown back. I want to get the rules changed for wider society. These rules are a systemic, widespread and international policy that results in discrimination on large scale across many countries”, Didusenko wrote.
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Kiev-born Veronika Didusenko was crowned Miss Ukraine in 2018, but her title was removed shortly after by the organising committee in relation to her previous divorce and being a mother to a four-year-old son, facts that she concealed from the competition’s organisers.
The Miss Ukraine committee referred to the rules of the National Beauty Contest, which resemble the regulations of Miss World, to explain their decision, specifying that beauty pageant contestants should not be or previously have been married and have no children upon entering the contest.
The model, who was prevented to take part in the Miss World finals in December 2018 following her disqualification, called the rules discriminatory and launched a media campaign, alongside her boyfriend and well-known businessman Gennadiy Kurochka, to address “these atavisms”.
