A00008 - Sharbat Gula, Afghan Girl

 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.

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. Whilst there, McCurry took what was to become one of the most iconic cover photographs for National Geographic. Initially, the magazine's editor did not want to use the image, but eventually gave in, publishing a cover image which was simply called Afghan Girl. The photo, which shows a girl with a unique green eye color, looking straight into the lens, became a symbol of the Afghan conflict and the problems affecting refugees around the world.

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".

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.