Summary 16-year-old Rayouf Alhumedhi is the teen behind the emoji. Photo courtesy: CNN News
(Web Desk) - For the first time in digital history headscarf wearing ladies will now have their own emoji on Apple devices thanks to the valiant efforts of a Saudi teenager.
According to CNN News 16-year-old Rayouf Alhumedhi who now lives in Vienna, proposed the idea to The Unicode Consortium, the non-profit firm responsible for reviewing and developing new emojis, after she realized that there was no emoji representing the millions of hijabi women across the world.
"My friends and I were creating a group chat on WhatsApp, and I obviously had no emoji to represent me."Rayouf said of the incident in an interview last year. Seeing the state of affairs Rayouf quickly drafted a proposal on her laptop and sent it to Unicode for consideration.
The reaction she got was nothing short of amazing. Her proposal was seen by Jennifer 8. Lee, a member of the Unicode emoji subcommittee, who approved of it. Jennifer then put Rayouf in touch with Aphee Messer and both of them together began to work on designing the emoji.
Rayouf,s efforts recently bore fruit (literally) as on World Emoji Day (Monday) the tech giant Apple approved the hijab emoji as one of a collection of new emoji characters that would be available on Apple devices later in the year.
The emoji has received both support and criticism. Photo courtesy: Huffington Post
Apple’s announcement has received a mixed reaction. While some people have supported the decision others have taken to social media to oppose it such as this Twitter user who claims that by including the hijab as an emoji Apple was supporting the oppression of women.
the hijab is a symbol of oppression. by including it as an emoji you are showing your support for the oppression of women.
— Joeymp (@joeymp123) July 17, 2017
Rayouf is well aware that the hijab emoji will cause controversy. Speaking to CNN on Tuesday she admitted that some people would use the emoji “in a hurtful way to perpetuate stereotypes."
But she also said that she believed that the Muslim community would overall benefit from the emoji as it would increase representation and hopefully promote tolerance as well.
