WASHINGTON – A Saudi teenager living in Germany has proposed designing a headscarf emoji, saying that hijab serves as ‘an integral aspect of women’s lives’.

“My friends, who don’t wear the headscarf, they found something.” Rayouf Alhumedhi told the Washington Post.

“For me? I had to opt to not use an image of a woman wearing a headscarf. Because there isn’t one.”

Emojis, the smartphone icons which have been called “the world’s fastest growing language”, have been diversifying in recent years.

Noticing the absence of special Emojis showing women in hijab, Alhumedhi decided to take an action.

The young Saudi teenage first tried to contact Apple customer service about it, then learned from Mashable that she should write to Unicode Consortium, a not-for-profit organization that standardizes text on computers.

The idea gained the backing of the co-founder of online discussion forum Reddit, Alexis Ohanian, graphic designer Aphelandra Messer, and journalist Jennifer 8. Lee, who is part of Unicode’s emoji subcommittee.

The current slate of emojis available on smartphones have expanded in recent years. In 2015, Unicode introduced more skin colors for emojis.

Google employees had proposed emojis for professional women in the past. Apple’s iOS 10 update, despite some glitches, included some additional gender diversity, including female athletes and professionals, single-parent families and a rainbow flag.

Same-sex couples and families became represented as Apple emojis in 2012 and 2015, respectively.

Huge Customer Base

There are about 1.6 billion Muslims in the world according to the Pew Research Center, and many women in the religion choose to wear a headscarf.

“With this enormous number of people, not a single space on the keyboard is reserved for them,” the proposal states.

In a Reddit “Ask Me Anything”, Alhumedhi answered questions on the emoji, why she personally wears a hijab and whether she sees it as oppressive.

“Might seem baffling, but when I wear the headscarf I actually feel liberated because I’m in control of what I want to cover,” she wrote.

“The headscarf allows for people to see past a woman’s beauty and see her for her knowledge.”

The authors identified Bitmoji, a service for emojis based on a personal avatar, as one of the only social platforms with an image of a woman in a hijab available.

Their proposal includes a design for both a woman and man in headscarves.

If approved, Alhumedhi’s emoji would be available in 2017, according to the BBC.