Sharbat Gula

The portrait was shot at Nasir Bagh, Pakistan, while Gula was residing there as an Afghan refugee fleeing the Soviet–Afghan War.

[1] Having lived and raised a family in Pakistan for 35 years, Gula was arrested by Pakistani authorities in 2016 and subsequently deported to Afghanistan in 2017 on the charge of possessing forged identity documents.

[2] Her sisters, brothers and grandmother moved to Pakistan to the Nasir Bagh refugee camp on the border with Afghanistan.

[2] However, Gula corrected the earlier reports, stating that her mother died of appendicitis and that her father was alive when they moved to Pakistan.

[3] In 1984, National Geographic photographer Steve McCurry travelled to Afghanistan to document the effects of the war, visiting refugee camps, many of which were on the Afghan-Pakistan border.

[6] It was later alleged that McCurry did not obtain permission to take the images, which contradict Pashtun culture, where women should not show their faces to men outside the family.

The photo, which shows a girl with a striking green eye colour, looking straight into the lens with a piercing stare, became a symbol of the Afghan conflict and the problems affecting refugees around the world.

"[20] After finding Gula, National Geographic covered the costs of medical treatment for her family and a pilgrimage to Mecca.

A NADRA source reportedly said, "They may not be her sons but this is a common practice among Afghan refugees whereby they list names of non-relatives as their children to obtain documents."

[15] In Kabul, Sharbat Gula and her children were welcomed by then-President Ashraf Ghani and former President Hamid Karzai at the presidential palace.

[20] In December 2017, Sharbat Gula was given a 3,000-square-foot (280 m2) residence in Kabul for her and her children and a $700 per month stipend for living and medical costs.

[33] In 2017, the New England Review published a new work by poet Gjertrud Schnakenberg, entitled "Afghan Girl", which the author had been composing since 2012.