SPAIN:A SPANISH beauty queen who was stripped of her crown after it was discovered she was a mother has withdrawn her legal action for sex discrimination.
Angela Bustillo won the regional qualifier of the Miss Spain contest in Cantabria in 2007 but was disqualified and forced to withdraw from the national contest after the revelation, believed to have come from a rival, that she had a three-year-old son.
The exclusion, which drew criticism from the government, triggered legal action on gender discrimination grounds given that the rules for the competition, which stated explicitly that "entrants must not have or be expecting children" (rule 7.4) did not apply to the Mr Spain event, organised by the same company.
The case, which has attracted much media interest for the past year, came to court yesterday in the beauty queen's home town of Santander but was dropped after the organisers provided evidence that they had amended the Miss Spain rules to remove the discriminatory prohibition and had allowed two contestants with children to compete this year.
Lawyers for the competition say that negotiations have been opened with the organisers of Miss World and Miss Universe to modify their rules to allow mothers who win the Miss Spain crown to compete.