„Hungary is my home”, says Somali supermodel sold for animals
In 2022, Somali-born Rea Milla has won the Hungarian Model of the Year title in Hungary. Despite many opportunities abroad to pursue her career as a supermodel, the young girl still insists on living in Hungary. Although she considers the country her home, she admits that the anti-refugee campaign still causes her many difficulties.
The story of Rea Milla – winner of this year’s Model of the Year in Hungary – is both fascinating and touching. The exotic beauty was only 14 years old when she was sold by her father to an older man as a wife for money and animals in Somalia. She travelled for a year from Somalia through Iran, Turkey, Greece and Serbia before finally arriving in Hungary. As the Hungarian news portal hvg reports, the young girl finally decided to stay here as she was extremely exhausted and did not want to get into further danger due to the human traffickers. While other refugees continued their journey to Sweden and Germany, Rea opted for safety and made a fresh start in Hungary.
Since then, the young girl has graduated from high school, learned Hungarian and even gained Hungarian citizenship. Meanwhile, she changed her name because she felt threatened by her country. Despite all the hardships, Rea Milla has realised a successful career as a supermodel and was awarded at the Model of the Year at the Fashion Awards Hungary gala in May this year.
However, as she admitted, the road to get here had not been easy. The face of the exotic beauty might be familiar as Rea Milla starred in the movie Easy Lessons in 2018. In the moving documentary, we learn about the story of the Somali girl who chose Hungary as her home. The film details the struggles of the girl fighting to live in her newly chosen country. We learn about her personal struggles and the difficulties caused by the refugee infrastructure. Furthermore, we get a glimpse into the difficulties of the educational and social policy systems. In addition, we can also follow her as she prepares for the challenges of the Hungarian graduation exams. Besides all these difficulties, the young girl also misses her mother, whom she left behind in Somalia – a place where she would have faced a much worse fate than she ever did in Hungary – reported by hvg.
According to the award-winning supermodel, she found the government’s anti-refugee campaign hard to live with, but that “those who make the anti-refugee posters, those who write the hateful comments, are fewer in number.”
After the award ceremony, many people complained about why Rea was awarded Model of the Year in 2022 and not a Hungarian girl. The exotic beauty has plenty of opportunities to pursue her modelling career abroad, but she still insists on living in Hungary. Why does she not take the opportunity? As Rea says, „I have worked as a model in several places before, but everyone has a home. For me, it’s Hungary.”
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Source: hvg.hu