Afghan Girl
She remembers the moment. The photographer took her picture. She remembers her anger. The man was a stranger. She had never been photographed before. Until they met again 17 years later, she had not been photographed since.
Seventeen years ago, a young Afghan girl gained international attention when her face appeared on the cover of the National Geographic magazine.Her eyes were piercing and green, and a red scarf was draped loosely over her hair. The magazine says it has tracked down the subject of that famous photo - with the help of high-tech iris recognition technology.The girl - now a wife and mother living in a remote part of Afghanistan - will once again feature in the magazine, for an issue focusing on the plight of refugees. Sharbat Gula was 13 when the photograph was taken in 1984.An ethnic Pashtun whose parents were killed during the Soviet war in Afghanistan, she was living with the remaining members of her family in Pakistan's Nasir Bagh refugee camp when she was spotted by photographer Steve McCurry. Since then, the picture has been reproduced countless times in books and posters around the world. Sharbat Gula married shortly after the picture was taken, and has since given birth to four daughters, one of whom died as an infant. After meeting her again, Mr McCurry said: "She's had a hard life. And so many here share her story." According to the National Geographic, Sharbat Gula was completely unaware of the effect her picture has had, and had never seen it until the team arrived. To make certain they had the right woman, the researchers used FBI iris-scanning technology and face-recognition techniques to prove her identity.
