Somali-American model Halima Aden, graces Teen Vogue‘s July 2018 issue, as shot by Scandebergs. A practicing Muslim, Aden is shot with a cover tagline that reads “I am America,” a clear rebuke to the anti-Muslim and racist policies that have been a signature of the Donald Trump administration.
In June, Teen Vogue accompansied Aden when she returned for the first time to visit the Kenyan refuge camp she lived in before she migrated to the United States at the age of six. She was making the trip as part of a UNICEF effort. While on the set shooting the July cover, she discovered she had been selected as an official UNICEF ambassador.
Addressing Trump’s new zero tolerance border policy that allows agents to separate migrant parents from their children no matter what their age, Aden expressed dismay, “I was a child refugee and I can’t even imagine the trauma that would come from being ripped from my mother. It leaves them vulnerable to exploitation and abuse. Child refugees are a nonpartisan issue,” she says.
Wearing designs by Chanel, Calvin Klein Dior and Nike, Aden was styled by Marcela Jacobina with make up by Courtney Perkins.
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