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Gula, Sharbat
Sharbat Gula (b. c. 1972). An Afghan woman who became famous for her photo taken by photojournalist Steve McCurry during the Soviet-Afghan War, when 12-year-old Gula was living in a refugee camp in Pakistan. The photo, known as Afghan Girl, became famous in June 1985 after appearing on the cover of National Geographic magazine. Gula's identity was unknown until 2002, when her whereabouts were verified and she was photographed for the second time in her life.
Gula was born into a Pashtun family. In the early 1980s, her village was attacked by Soviet helicopters and during the attacks her parents were killed. Her sisters, brothers and grandmother moved to Pakistan to the Nasir Bagh refugee camp on the border with Afghanistan. It was whilst Gula was attending school there, that McCurry photographed her and other girls. 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.
In the mid 1980s, Sharbat was married to baker Rahmat Gula when she was aged 13, and returned to Afghanistan in 1992. As of 2002, Gula had three daughters, Robin, Zahid and Alyan – her fourth daughter died shortly after birth; she later had a son. Her husband died in 2012.
In late October 2016, Gula was arrested by Pakistani police on suspicion of forging an identity document. She was deported by the Pakistani Courts to Afghanistan, where the government promised to take care of her family housing, education and health. In 2017 she was given a house by the Afghan government and a $700 per month stipend for living and medical costs. As of 2016, she was living in Kabul.
Following the crisis which occurred after the Taliban capture of Kabul in 2021, Gula was evacuated to Italy, where she received refugee status.
The identity of the girl remained unknown for more than 17 years. In the 1990s, the journalist made several unsuccessful attempts to find out the girl's name. In January 2002, a National Geographic team led by Steve McCurry travelled to Afghanistan to find her, however during this search several women and men came forward, claiming to either be Gula, or to be married to her. Eventually she was tracked down through a camp resident who knew her brother. Her identity was verified by John Daugman using iris recognition software.
In the intervening years, Gula had no idea how globally symbolic her face had become. It is the only image to have been used three times on National Geographic covers.
The Finnish metal band Nightwish dedicated an instrumental work to Gula, on the 2015 album Endless Forms Most Beautiful entitled "The Eyes of Sharbat Gula". Here Be Dragons, an album by The Kilimanjaro Darkjazz Ensemble includes a composition called "Sharbat Gula".
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Afghan Girl is a 1984 photographic portrait of Sharbat Gula (Pashto: شربت ګله) (pronounced [ˈʃaɾbat]) (born 20 March 1972), also known as Sharbat Bibi, taken by photojournalist Steve McCurry.[1] It appeared on the June 1985 cover of National Geographic. The image is of an adolescent girl with green eyes in a red headscarf looking intensely at the camera. The identity of the photo's subject was not initially known, but in early 2002, she was identified as Sharbat Gula. She was a Pashtun child living in the Nasir Bagh refugee camp in Pakistan during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan when she was photographed.
The photo has been likened to Leonardo da Vinci's painting of the Mona Lisa[2][3] and been called "the First World's Third World Mona Lisa".[4] The image became "emblematic" of "refugee girl/woman located in some distant camp" deserving of the Western viewer's compassion.[5] It became a symbol of Afghanistan to the West.[6]
Sharbat Gula was one of the students in an informal school at the Nasir Bagh refugee camp in 1984. Her photograph was taken by National Geographic Society photographer Steve McCurry, on Kodachrome 64 color slide film, with a Nikon FM2 camera and Nikkor 105mm Ai-S F2.5 lens.[7] The pre-print photo retouching was done by Graphic Art Service, based in Marietta, Georgia. McCurry did not record the name of the person he had photographed.
The picture, titled Afghan Girl, appeared on the June 1985 cover of National Geographic. The image of her face, with a red scarf draped loosely over her head and her eyes staring directly into the camera, was named "the most recognized photograph" in the magazine's history, and the cover is one of National Geographic's most famous.[8] American Photo magazine says the image has an "unusual combination of grittiness and glamour".[9] Gula's green eyes have been the subject of much commentary.[5][10][11]
McCurry made several unsuccessful attempts during the 1990s to find her.[12] In January 2002, a National Geographic team traveled to Afghanistan to find her. Upon learning that the Nasir Bagh refugee camp was soon to close, McCurry inquired of its remaining residents, one of whom knew Gula's brother and was able to send word to her hometown. But several women falsely identified themselves as the famous Afghan Girl. In addition, after being shown the 1984 photo, several young men erroneously identified her as their wife.
The team found Gula, then around age 30, in a remote region of Afghanistan; she had returned to her native country from the refugee camp in 1992. Her identity was confirmed by John Daugman using iris recognition.[13] She recalled being photographed. She had been photographed on only three occasions: in 1984 and during the search for her when a National Geographic producer took the identifying pictures that led to the reunion with McCurry. She had never seen Afghan Girl until it was shown to her in 2002.
Pashtun by ethnicity and from a rural background, Gula's family fled their village in eastern Nangarhar during the Soviet Union's bombing of Afghanistan when she was around six years old. Along with her father, brother, and three sisters, she walked across the mountains to Pakistan to the Nasir Bagh refugee camp in 1984.[14]
She married Rahmat Gul between the age of 13 and 16, and returned to her village in Afghanistan in 1992. She is a widow: her husband died from hepatitis C around 2012.[15] Gula has three daughters. A fourth died in infancy. She expressed hopes that her children will be able to get an education. A devout Muslim, Gula normally wears a burqa and was hesitant to meet McCurry, as he was a male from outside the family. Asked if she had ever felt safe, she responded, "No. But life under the Taliban was better. At least there was peace and order." When asked how she had survived, she responded that it was "the will of God".[14]
After finding Gula, National Geographic covered the costs of medical treatment for her family and a pilgrimage to Mecca.[16]
In 2015, Pakistani newspapers reported that the National Database and Registration Authority (NADRA) had canceled Gula's Computerized National Identity Card (CNIC) and those of two men listed as her sons. Reports claimed the cards had been issued illegally. 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." A relative said that the family lives in Pakistan, but "We travel between Pakistan and Afghanistan depending on the security situation."[1]
On 26 October 2016, the Federal Investigation Agency arrested Gula for living in Pakistan with forged documents.[17][18] She was sentenced to fifteen days in detention and deported to Afghanistan.[15][19] The decision was criticised by Amnesty International.[15] In Kabul, Sharbat Gula and her children were welcomed by then-President Ashraf Ghani and former President Hamid Karzai at the presidential palace. The government promised to support her financially.[20] In December 2017, Sharbat Gula was given a 3,000-square-foot (280 m2) residence in Kabul for her and her children.[21] In November 2021, following the takeover of Afghanistan by the Taliban, the Italian Government evacuated her to Italy at her request.[22][23]
Interest in the photo increased after 9/11 attacks when the George W. Bush administration began promoting Afghan women's rights during the US military campaign in Afghanistan.[12][24]
Pictures of Gula were featured as part of a cover story on her life in the April 2002 issue of National Geographic and she was the subject of a television documentary, Search for the Afghan Girl, that aired in March 2002. In recognition of her,[25] National Geographic set up the Afghan Girls Fund, a charitable organization with the goal of educating Afghan girls and young women.[26] In 2008, the fund's scope was broadened to include boys and the name was changed to Afghan Children's Fund.[27]
A 2019 article in the Indian magazine The Wire that described a 2002 interview with Gula says that she was angered by the photograph being taken and published without her consent. The writer for The Wire suggests that this is because "it is not welcome for a girl of traditional Pashtun culture to reveal her face, share space, make eye contact and be photographed by a man who does not belong to her family."[6]
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