The photograph was taken during the height of the Soviet-Afghan War. McCurry was touring makeshift schools along the border when he entered a tent functioning as a primary school classroom. There, he noticed a girl of roughly 12 years old with an incredibly intense, shell-shocked yet fierce gaze.
In January 2002, following the ouster of the Taliban regime, a dedicated National Geographic team along with Steve McCurry traveled back to Afghanistan to search for her. They finally located her in a remote region of the country. Her name is Sharbat Gula. To confirm her identity beyond a shadow of a doubt, forensic analysts utilized advanced iris-recognition technology, which perfectly matched her unique eye patterns to the original 1984 photograph.
Sharbat Gula’s life has been heavily dictated by the ongoing conflicts in her homeland. After spending decades living as an undocumented refugee, she was deported from Pakistan back to Afghanistan in 2016, where the Afghan government welcomed her with honors and provided her with a home. Following the Taliban’s return to power in late 2021, she was granted political asylum and safely evacuated to Italy, where she currently resides.