Growing up with your parents brings safety, but being abandoned can leave deep emotional scars.
Xueli Abbing, now 16, was abandoned at birth in China and left outside an orphanage. Her parents were never identified. Staff named her \u201cXue Li,\u201d meaning \u201csnow\u201d and \u201cbeautiful,\u201d because she was born with albinism.<\/p>\n
She was later adopted by a loving Dutch family. At 11, a Hong Kong designer invited her to model in a campaign celebrating \u201cperfect imperfections,\u201d which became her first major experience in fashion.<\/p>\n
People with albinism face discrimination worldwide, and in some places, are even hunted due to harmful myths. \u201cI\u2019m lucky I was only abandoned,\u201d Xueli has said. She dislikes when models with albinism are used as \u201cprops,\u201d but she was treated with respect during a London photoshoot \u2014 one of the images even appeared in Vogue Italia<\/em> in 2019.<\/p>\n Modeling is challenging for her; she has only 8\u201310% vision, and camera flashes hurt her eyes. Still, she continues to work to represent people who don\u2019t fit conventional beauty standards.<\/p>\n Xueli wants to educate the world about albinism. \u201cIt\u2019s a genetic disorder, not a curse,\u201d she says. She hopes people will say \u201ca person with albinism,\u201d not \u201can albino.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI won\u2019t accept children being harmed because of albinism. I want to change the world,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n