Pakistani Authorities Release ‘The Afghan Girl’ From The Jail, Say Won’t Deport Her
- JWB Post
- November 8, 2016
She became an icon when she was a teenager. But living in war-ravaged Afghanistan, Sharbat Gula had no idea that her fame was at par with that of Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa.
Yes, I am talking about The Afghan Girl, the image that immortalized Steve Mccurry and since then has been synonymous with the plight of refugees and people from countries which are facing military conflict.
The picture of a green-eyed Gula, staring intensely at the camera is not only iconic but also telling of a time when the world was seeing one of the bloodiest conflicts of the 20th century, the Soviet-Afghan war.
The events changed history and would usher the Afghanistan into a long darkness of bloodshed of violence which will also give a chance later to the Taliban to usurp power.
But for the world, Gula is still the teenaged Afghan Girl, who was clicked by a National Geographic photographer inside a refugee camp in Pakistan.
Recently, Gula was arrested in Pakistan for living with fake documents along with her two sons. The world and social media were speculating the fate of Gula after Pakistani authorities arrested her.
But now, she has been released from jail after serving a 15-day sentence and paying a fine of 1,10,000 rupees. Pakistan has said that it will not be deporting Gula on humanitarian grounds and as predicted, the social media couldn’t help but rejoice.
This is not only great news for us but also an apt conclusion to her saga, which started 30 years ago. Have you ever wondered that if an ordinary person has to start her life from a refugee camp, forge documents and move to another country to escape the conflict raging in her country, then how many more Afghan Girls are in the world?
And not only Afghanistan, but other war-torn countries such as Syria also have their fair share of refugees, about whom we spare barely a thought or two.
Let’s take just one lesson from the life of Sharbat Gula and make this a better world.
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