In honor of World Emoji Day on July 17, Apple revealed a new set of forthcoming emojis, including a new hijab emoji. The idea for a hijab emoji came last year, when a 16-year-old Muslim girl named Rayouf Alhumedhi proposed the idea to The Unicode Consortium, the nonprofit corporation that reviews and develops new emojis. According to Alhumedhi, she and her friends were surprised that a hijab emoji did not already exist, saying: “The fact that there wasn’t an emoji to represent me and the millions of other hijabi women across the world was baffling to me.” She is happy with Apple’s design for the character and is looking forward to its release later this year.
