How They Found National Geographic's "Afghan Girl"
David Braun
National Geographic News
Updated March 7, 2003
This story was first published a year ago, in March 2002, when the National Geographic Society announced that the "Afghan Girl" had been found.
A National Geographic EXPLORER documentary airing in the United States on Sunday, March 9, 2003, tells the whole story, including an interview with Sharbat Gula.
She was one of the world's most famous faces, yet no one knew who she was. Her image appeared on the front of magazines and books, posters, lapel pins, and even rugs, but she didn't know it. Now, after searching for 17 years, National Geographic has once again found the Afghan girl with the haunting green eyes.
The mysterious Afghan girl whose direct gaze has intrigued the West for so long is Sharbat Gula. She lives in a remote region of Afghanistan with her husband and three daughters.
Sharbat was located nearly two decades after her picture appeared on the cover of National Geographic magazine in 1985. She had no idea her face had become an icon, said Steve McCurry, the photographer who made the famous portrait for National Geographic in 1984, and who tried to find her again during many subsequent trips he made to Pakistan and Afghanistan.
McCurry's photo of the girl was selected as the cover of National Geographic 100 Best Pictures.
In January 2002, a National Geographic team returned to the Nasir Bagh refugee camp in Pakistan, where Sharbat Gula was originally photographed, to search for her. She was identified through a series of contacts that led to her brother and husband, who agreed to ask her if she was willing to be interviewed.
Sharbat has been photographed on only two occasions: in 1984 and at the reunion with Steve McCurry this year. She had never seen her famous portrait before it was shown to her in January.
"This is the face that so captivated not only National Geographic readers but also anyone who saw her image around the world," said Boyd Matson, host of the National Geographic television show EXPLORER, who was with the group that met with Gula.
"We've known her face, but we've not known her story, not even her name," he said.
Final Search
National Geographic set out to make one last concerted effort to find the "Afghan girl" before the refugee camp in Pakistan where she had last been seen was demolished.
From the camp, the trail wound through several villages and into at least one dead end, until someone recognized the girl on the cover of National Geographic and said he knew her brother.
"The second I saw the color of her brother's eyes, I knew we had the right family," said Matson.
Because Sharbat Gula lives a traditional Muslim life behind the veil, she was not allowed to meet men outside her family. But the Geographic team was given permission to send a female associate producer to meet Sharbat and photograph her face.
Matson said that when he compared the photograph of the woman with that of the girl, he was certain it was the same person. "The irises of the eyes, the moles and scar on the face—all indicated this was the person we were looking for," he said.
Still, to make sure Sharbat Gula was the girl who had been photographed 17 years earlier, the EXPLORER team obtained verification through iris-scanning technology and face-recognition techniques used by the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation.
After Sharbat's family granted permission for her to meet with the man who photographed her 17 years ago, McCurry knew immediately, even after so many years, that he had found her again. "Her eyes are as haunting now as they were then," he said.
"She remembered me, primarily because she had never been photographed before I made the image of her in 1984, or since then," he said.
Sharbat Gula recalled the experience of being photographed as a child, she told McCurry, because she remembered how her head covering was full of holes after being scorched by a cooking fire.
When they met again, McCurry told Sharbat her image had become famous as a symbol of the Afghan people. "I don't think she was particularly interested in her personal fame," McCurry said. "But she was pleased when we said she had come to be a symbol of the dignity and resilience of her people."
The award-winning photographer said his original image of Sharbat had seized the imagination of so many people around the world because her face, particularly her eyes, expressed pain and resilience as well as strength and beauty.
Sharbat Tells Her Story
When Sharbat agreed to have her picture taken for the second time in her life, she came out from the secrecy of her veil to tell her story. She wanted the people around the world who knew her face to know that she survived the refugee camp in Pakistan.
She married and had four daughters, one of whom died in infancy. She lives in obscurity, according to the customs and traditions of her culture and religion.
A member of the Pashtun ethnic group in Afghanistan, Sharbat said she fared relatively well under Taliban rule, which, she feels, provided a measure of stability after the chaos and terror of the Soviet war.
According to Matson and McCurry, Sharbat Gula has returned to anonymity; the latest publicity about her name and face is unlikely to draw attention to her in Afghanistan. "She will not give another media interview and she wishes not to be contacted," Matson said. Her family has relocated to a different village in a remote part of Afghanistan, where she will continue to live her life in purdah, he added.
Asked if Sharbat would benefit financially from her famous image, Matson said she was "being looked after."
"Clearly she has become a symbol that National Geographic has used to illustrate the circumstances of refugees like her, and many people have inquired about her," he said. "She stood for an entire group of refugees, not just Afghan refugees. She has helped us with our mission of educating people about other cultures and regions—and she's helping us again by drawing attention to the lives of Afghan women and girls in general."
Related Feature: Change Slow for Afghan Women
Because Sharbat Gula has come to symbolize the suffering of an entire generation of Afghan women and their children, the National Geographic Society is creating a special fund to assist in the development and delivery of educational opportunities for young Afghan women and girls. The Society will work with select nonprofit organizations and local authorities in the region to create the program.
I feel like i dont deserve EVERYTHING that i have right now.
who was i in my past life?
what good did i do and God gave me these?
do i even deserve them?
Just now i realized how superficial i am... or practically everybody. i mean, people problemize things that are not really to be problemized...
ya feelin' me?
I mean, take weight for example. Vinnice said that she was so sorry for doing that starvation diet and will already eat if needed. yeah. she's right.
Many of us push the food away from us while others, like in this photo, which i took from vinnice's site, crawl their way up just to get some free food.
Just think, how many of us try to loose all the weight we have by starving ourselves to death and enjoying every second of it while some people try to gain them while crawling their way up and having someone behind you, just waiting for you to die so they could eat you ?!?! isnt that just plain selfishness?
I wanna change things. THAT'S MY POINT AND REASON IN EVERYTHING I DID, DO AND WILL DO. i wanna get to people. help them in whichever way i can.
I dont know if i posted this before but last year, ive been doing researches about the aids crisis in Africa. Since then, ive been wanting to go there and help people out. i dont know how but i want to. some people might say that im doing this for other reasons, whatever it is that your mind will form, think of whatever you would. all i know is what I know..
That's what matters to me.
From now on, i will only stress my brain out for the things that really matter. I will not be as self-centered as I was. I will appreciate all the things that i have right now, be thankful for it and be content for just being able to have them because not much people get the opportunity that the others do. I'm doing this for the people who are starving to death, hiding for their lives and running away from bombs, bullets and diseases.
I offer all of you out there, my prayers. That all of you would get the security and life that you should and the blessings that you deserve.
I wanna start an org or a foundation or a project or maybe a campaign to end this madness. I wanna make a change. Change in people's lives.
I meant that as to those who are starving to death and hiding out for their lives.
Not the ones who care all about the way they look and how they dress and whatnot non-sense shyit. up yours people.
so sad that some people had to live this way. some, fearing bullets, flying from here to there, that everday night be their last..
while others just party like there's no tomorrow.
i guess people will never be content of what they have, huh?
i feel so....... small.
i dunnow.... <3
what do i know right? | 
<hahahah!!!> and that i'll be an independent station and all that.....
LE convo last night...
awwww....
