Kiwi beauty queen contestant Nicole Harding flees the Philippines

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Nicole Harding, 22, will fly back to New Zealand a week before the Miss Pancontinental in the Philippines finishes because of safety and security concerns.

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A Kiwi beauty queen is devastated to ditch her first international pageant after organisers ran "a Mickey Mouse outfit" and put contestants in danger, she says.

Christchurch's Nicole Harding is one of several contestants to pull out of the Philippines pageant because of disorganisation and safety concerns, including a night in a hotel room she likened to a prison cell, with armed guards and dogs outside.

The 22-year-old is on her way home from Manila where she was to represent New Zealand at the inaugural Miss Pancontinental pageant.

Nicole Harding, left, with fellow contestants in the "Mickey Mouse" pageant.

"No one had any idea this was going to happen, if anyone knew half the delegates wouldn't have been sent there," Harding, who appeared in a promotional video for the pageant, said.

Harding, a nursing student, arrived in Manila on November 18. Contestants were promised their costs, including five-star hotels, would be covered by the pageant.

The group were to fly to Cagayan de Oro, in the country's Mindanao province, for the heats. The New Zealand Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade has extreme and high risk alerts for the island. According to reports, human trafficking has been a problem in the region.

Harding said at the airport some of the contestants had trouble checking in. Once they arrived in Cagayan De Oro they were taken to a different hotel after a booking problem organisers did not tell contestants about.

"They took us to this hotel, which, in New Zealand, I would liken to a prison cell. There were guys out the front with machine guns and dogs."

She said there were three people to a room with only one double bed. The bed was on concrete floor with slim mattress. The room was "crawling with bugs".

Harding said the next day they were transferred to a different hotel, which was not expecting them. They then found out their luggage, two pageant organisers and the photographer had been detained at the previous hotel because it had not been paid for.

Another organiser arrived to make the payment before they headed to another hotel.

"It was just a Mickey Mouse outfit.

"We met with the Cagayan governor and he said it was not safe to be here, this place is more unsafe than Afghanistan. He told us, where we were, they kidnap people and use them as sex slaves, it's the number one place for human trafficking and we needed to get these girls out of here.

"I think what they tried to do was run a pageant on a budget and make a profit. Yet I was told this was non-profit and the proceeds would go to charity."

Harding said a Filipino government official advised the girls to leave the country, while her mother had been in touch with the New Zealand Embassy. Miss USA, Ashley Clark, had been advised to leave by the US Embassy.

They had flown back to Manila and would take the next available flights home.

They were aware of at least three other contestants who had pulled out of the pageant due to security concerns and poor organisation. Harding herself had spent up to $7,000 on the trip. Some of the cost was covered by her sponsor.

"I'm gutted because I've spent so much time, money and effort. All the contestants did. It's been one of my dreams to do this and now it's been obliterated."

New Zealand director of pageants Mila Manuel said she sent Harding to the pageant because she knew the organisers. She was disappointed they had let her down.

Manuel was helping arrange flights to get Harding home. She understood the pageant would still go ahead.

"They have let me down, I have never seen a pageant like this before."

A Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade spokeswoman said the New Zealand embassy in the Philippines did not provide the advice to leave the area. 

Its safe travel advisory for central and western Mindanao is set at extreme risk, and high risk for the rest of Mindanao. There is some risk to security elsewhere in the Philippines, including in Manila, due to the threat of terrorism, risk of kidnapping and violent crime and it advises "caution". 

http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/74332702/kiwi-beauty-pageant-contestant-flees-philippines