Sharbat Gula, who was immortalized as the green-eyed “Afghan girl” after she appeared on the cover of National Geographic magazine 30 years ago and whose haunting gaze became an iconic symbol of the horrors of a Soviet occupation, now is a widow in her 40s and she has become the face of another struggle.
Radio Liberty reports that since her arrest by Pakistani authorities last month on document-fraud charges, the mother of four has come to embody the plight of the millions of Afghan refugees in Pakistan.
Activists reportedly warn that Gula and other hapless Afghans trying to escape war and hardship at home face apathy in the international community and mistreatment by authorities in the region.
“She's become the poster child for the desperate situation of Afghan refugees in Pakistan,” says Patricia Gossman, a senior researcher on Afghanistan at Human Rights Watch. “She is just one of the hundreds of thousands of Afghans who are facing abuses by the Pakistani authorities. Basically, [they're] being compelled to return to a very uncertain future in Afghanistan.”
Gula has been held in jail in the northwest Pakistani city of Peshawar since her arrest on October 26 for allegedly forging documents to get Pakistani nationality.
According to Radio Liberty, a special court for anticorruption and immigration denied her bail on November 2, saying her application for release focused on humanitarian, not legal, arguments.
Afghanistan's Ambassador in Pakistan, Omar Zakhilwal, said Gula, who suffers from hepatitis, was hospitalized for treatment the same day.
Gula gained global recognition when her photograph was featured on National Geographic’s cover in 1985 and was linked with Leonardo Da Vinci’s Mona.
She has been residing together with her sons in Nasir Bagh camp established for Afghan refugees since she moved to Peshawar in 1984.
Sharbat Gula was 12 years old when she was photographed by Steve McCurry in a refugee camp in Pakistan, in December 1984. The haunting image of the green-eyed girl became an international symbol of refugees and of political and social unrest in the region. It has been widely reproduced, making her one of the most recognizable non-celebrity faces of the 20th century.
