When model and aspiring beauty queen Alisa Bahtanovic left the UK for Malaysia on Dec 10 last year, her only thoughts were about being crowned Miss Tourism Queen of the Year International Pageant 2006.
Little did she realise that her dream would come crashing down in a world where contestants are allegedly "treated like slaves and made to work like robots" - a claim that the Malaysian organisers vehemently deny.
There are also accusation of underaged girls participating in the contests.
Alisa, 26 (
left
) said incidents behind the scenes at the competition - which drew 40 contestants from around the world - left her "shocked and upset".
"Most girls are scared to talk. They are afraid if they bad mouth the event, it would affect them and that they would have a problem competing in other beauty pageants," she told malaysiakini .
Now back in London, working as a model and studying fashion and public relations, Alisa said that she regrets having participated in the event as England's representative.
The following is malaysiakini's three-part series on the dark side of beauty pagents.
Part 1: The ugly side of a beauty pageant
