Hijab emoji: 16-year-old Saudi girl's suggestion gains representation for headscarf-wearing Muslim women

Rayouf Alhumedhi says she was 'baffled' the image wasn't already available

The Apple version of the new hijab emoji (Apple)

Women who wear headscarves are now represented in emoji form, and they have a Saudi teenager to thank for it.

Rayouf Alhumedhi, 16, persuaded the group that develops emojis to create one that looked like her, and "millions of women from different races" around the world.

She said it was "baffling" an appropriate image did not exist already, and wrote to The Unicode Consortium with her suggestion.

On Monday, World Emoji Day, Apple announced it had accepted the design among a slew of others, including a breastfeeding woman, both of which have multiple available skin tones.

Ms Alhumedhi, who now lives in Vienna, told CNN: "I'm really happy with what it looks like. I'm just so excited because it's finally came out after all the work, all the writing."

She came up with the idea when she and her friends were creating a WhatsApp group chat and could find no emoji to represent her.