15-year-old girl begins campaign to add hijab emoji

Rayouf Alhumedhi was texting her friends on WhatsApp when she realized something:

There is no emoji to represent her, a girl wearing a hijab.

The 15-year-old Saudi Arabian, who is a Berlin resident, later sent a proposal to Unicode Consortium, an international body which governs the approval of new emojis, to include the hijab emoji.

Her proposal on Reddit quickly went viral and caught the attention and support of social news aggregation site co-founder himself, Alexis Ohanian.

“With the massive amount of women wearing the headscarf today, there should be at least one place on our keyboards reserved for them,” Rayouf wrote on Reddit.

A set of emojis attached with the proposal was designed by Nebraska-based freelance illustrator Aphelandra Messer.

The proposal also explained that that hijab is not Muslim-exclusive as women of other faiths also don headscarves, not to mention those who wear it simply as a fashion statement.

If approved, Rayouf's emoji could be available in 2017.

Read the full proposal here.

A set of emojis attached with the proposal was designed by Nebraska-based freelance illustrator Aphelandra Messer.