Taiwan beauty pageant battles 'home wreckers'

TAIPEI: A Taiwanese beauty pageant is demanding contestants sign a declaration confirming they are not "home wreckers", amid growing concern over celebrity extramarital affairs.

"Beginning this year, each contestant must sign a declaration honestly stating she hasn't been in any extramarital affairs," Fifi Chang, organiser of the Miss Globalcity Taiwan Pageant, told AFP Monday.

"Anyone found violating the declaration will lose the right to compete in the pageant... serving the purpose of correcting worsening social morals."

One scandal to hit the headlines involved Wang Chien-min, an ace Taiwanese pitcher with the Washington Nationals, who admitted last week to an eight-month affair.

Dozens of women, most of them college students, have applied to join this year's pageant which is slated to kick off in June, Chang said.