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What’s missing from the narrative on National Geographic’s iconic ‘Afghan girl’

The intense concern about the girl who graced a National Geographic cover stands in stark contrast to the little attention given to the bigger crisis.

CREDIT: Screenshot/National Geographic TV, YouTube
CREDIT: Screenshot/National Geographic TV, YouTube

Sharbat Gula immediately became one of the most iconic National Geographic magazine covers when her image, snapped in a refugee camp in Pakistan, was published in 1985. Over 30 years later, the “Afghan girl” is still a refugee — and she will soon be deported. Gula was arrested last week in Peshawar, Pakistan for forged identity papers and after serving a short prison sentence, she will be deported to Afghanistan.

There’s been a huge amount of media interest in Gula’s case since she was arrested on October 23. But the incredible concern for Gula’s status doesn’t translate to the larger refugee crisis, which, outside of isolated incidents, hasn’t received nearly as much attention.

According to Pakistani newspaper Dawn, Gula owned fake Pakistani ID cards, and the three NADRA officials responsible for issuing them to her are being charged as well. On Friday, November 4, Gula was found guilty and sentenced to 15 days in prison and a fine of Rs110,000 (approximately US$1,050). She has already been in jail for nine days, so she will be held for an additional six days, Dawn reported.

Gula’s picture was taken in a Pakistani refugee camp in 1984 by photographer Steve McCurry and became a National Geographic cover the next year. Despite gracing the covers of the magazine, no one knew her name for 17 years — including the photographer — and she simply became known as the “Afghan girl.”

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McCurry returned to Pakistan in 2002, and finally learned her name (Sharbat Gula), that she is Pashtun, and that she doesn’t know her own age. According to McCurry’s account of that meeting, Gula had returned to Afghanistan, gotten married, and had three daughters. A fourth daughter had died when she was an infant. Gula said she got an arranged marriage at 13, but her husband told National Geographic that she was 16. Her husband lived and worked in Peshawar, while she alternated between Peshawar in the winter and the Tora Bora region of Afghanistan in the summer.

National Geographic ended up making a documentary about her life, and staff continues to call her the “Mona Lisa” of Afghanistan.

But the intense concern about Gula and the flurry of media reports about her arrest on Wednesday stand in stark contrast to the little attention given to the refugee crisis as a whole.

Every time an iconic image comes along that gives us a glimpse of what the refugee crisis is really like— of an infant drowning in the sea, of a child covered in rubble, of a man being deliberately tripped while fleeing police, or of “a young girl with sea green eyes” — people care. Otherwise, however, the refugee crisis has been met with surprisingly little attention around the world, and few meaningful solutions have been offered.

The world’s poorest countries currently host the most refugees. In 2015, the U.N. Refugee Agency (UNHCR)found that sub-Saharan Africa was hosting the most refugees at 4.41 million. Wealthier countries simply aren’t taking in as many refugees as they’re capable of, including the United States.

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Despite the fact that the United States is stretching into the 16th year of the war in Afghanistan — the longest running war in U.S. history — it has been given remarkably little attention by this year’s presidential candidates. There were exactly zero questions about Afghanistan through all three presidential debates and the one vice presidential debate.

Gula is just one of the approximately 3 million Afghans seeking safety. From 1980–2014, Afghanistan was the biggest source of refugees in the world. In 2015, the UNHCR estimated that there were over 1.7 million people of concern in the country, including those who are asylum-seekers, refugees, internally displaced, which is a 33 percent increase from the year before.

The European Union announced earlier this month that it would send tens of thousands of Afghans who had reached Europe and whose asylum applications had been rejected back to Afghanistan. In return for sending people back to a war zone, Europe offered $1.46 billion in aid annually. E.U. officials have denied linking aid to repatriation, despite the leak of a March E.U. memo that suggested financial aid pledges in return for Afghanistan accepting 80,000 asylum-seekers from E.U. countries.

Afghan refugees aren’t treated well in neighboring Pakistan or Iran either, where there has been a sizable community since the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan in 1979. Despite both countries being in the top five countries hosting refugees, they are also both forcing Afghan refugees back over the border.

In Pakistan, where Gula was arrested, refugees’ “Proof of Registration” cards will be revoked on December 31, affecting more than 1.5 million previously documented people. And on November 15, the almost 1 million undocumented Afghans in the country will require visas in order to remain. The Economist reported that banks have already been closing refugees’ accounts and mobile companies have been disabling their SIM cards. Human Rights Watch has documented the false promises given to and agony faced by refugees voluntarily and (involuntarily) returning to Afghanistan.

Meanwhile, the situation in Afghanistan is getting worse. The news of Gula’s arrest came at the same time that ISIS militants kidnapped and killed 30 people in Afghanistan’s Ghor province. The country is dealing with a growing ISIS presence, as well as significant gains made by the Taliban. The United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan estimates that 8,397 civilians have been killed or injured in the country so far this year.

UPDATE: This piece was updated on 11/4/2016 to include news of Gula’s sentence and planned deportation from Pakistan.