Hijabi teen turns heads in burkini at US beauty pageant

A Muslim Kenya-born teenager has made history by becoming the first fully-covered participant to ever take part in a US beauty pageant. Halima Aden, 19, who wears a hijab, opted to sport a burkini for the Miss Minnesota pageant’s semi-final swimsuit round.

Aden, who was born in a refugee camp in Kenya, had moved to the United States at the age of six. Although she did not win the contest, she hopes that her participation would help challenge people’s prejudices about Islam.

“For a really long time I thought being different was a negative thing. But as I grew older, I started to realize we are all born to stand out, nobody is born to blend in. How boring would this world be if everyone was the same?” she was quoted as saying by CBS.