The story of the Afghan Girl

Refugees, Afghanistan & Pakistan’s interests

Everything is right.

Sharbat Gula, the Afghan Girl, is not a Pakistani by birth. She is not registered as a refugee and has been living illegally in the country. She obtained a Pakistani CNIC when she was not a citizen. And that was illegal.

So, she was arrested on Oct 26, fined Rs 110,000 and sentenced to 15 days in prison that is going to end to today (Wednesday). After which she will leave for her country as she has taken back her application which she had earlier submitted requesting to be allowed an extended stay here.

Everything is right legally. But is all this correct politically, too?

Behind the story of this single individual, Sharbat Gula, is the story of millions of Afghan refugees. In a larger context, Sharbat Gula’s story is the story of majority of the Afghan people; her face, the face of the Afghan nation.

Let’s tell this story again.

She was six years old when her parents were killed in the Afghan war and she had to ‘walk across the mountains to Pakistan’ along with her grandmother and siblings in 1984. What else she could have done? Around 3.5 million Afghans followed this path; 3,500,000 human beings, who lost their near and dear ones, ran for their lives and ended up in refugees’ camps on this side of the Durand Line.

National Geographic photographer Steve McCurry happened to see her and captured her image on his camera. Needless to mention that this photo, titled ‘Afghan Girl’, made it to the cover of the magazine in June 1985. This 12-year old child’s face became the face of the misery and plight that had befallen the Afghan lot after the 1979 Soviet intervention in their country; her dirty cloths and shredded chador in the photo are testament to that bitter reality. But Sharbat Gula didn’t know till 2002 that she was so lucky to have become the symbol of unlucky ones around the world.

It is said she was married to a man, named Rahman Gul, between age of 13-16, reared five children (one died), and became a widow somewhere down the road. No one can exactly tell what hardships she has gone through while living this kind of life all these years but it is writ large on her face now; malnourished, sick, miserable, helpless and hapless.

And may be that’s the reason that luck chose her once again to become the symbol of the predicament that ‘refugees without a land’ – called the Afghans – are facing once again. They are refugees without a land because most of them have Afghan parents/forefathers but who have never seen that land. This is their third generation here. But even if they want to go back, their motherland is unwelcoming to them; like Sharbat Gula, whose Nangarhar province is still home to war between Afghan National Forces and Taliban.

But everything done to her by Pakistan authorities is legally right still. She was ‘unregistered’ that’s why UNHCR distanced itself from her publicly when she was arrested. And the law took its own course. In fact, talking in strict legal terms, the concerned court took a ‘lenient view’ of her offenses and jailed her for only 15 days when she could have been sentenced up to six months.

But legal is just one aspect. There are political, moral and human rights sides to this episode as well. On the political side is domestic public opinion too, which has gradually been turned against the Afghan refugees during recent months; some say it has been very skillfully manipulated. Then there are those people who believe that Sharbat Gula may have come under the knife just by chance and the FIA personnel who raided her house might not have been aware of her actual identity or popularity – and then the law had to take its course.

But many don’t agree with this contention. Then there is this human rights side to it which is why Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have expressed their displeasure over the treatment meted out to her.

On the political side, the episode is likely to generate negative feelings about Pakistan. Steve McCurry, while writing in ‘The Guardian’ on November 3, said, “The raid on her home last week was, I believe, politically motivated. Many believe she was targeted. As her face once symbolised the hopes of countless refugees, the image of her post-arrest mug shot circulated last week was meant to instill fear into other refugees – and to turn the minds of others against the migrant population.”

And this is a bad news for Pakistan not just from ‘international image’ point-of-view but from a foreign policy perspective also. Afghan Ambassador, Omar Zakhilwal, who is considered a no-nonsense man, said that the episode has ‘hurt the feelings of all Afghans. Though uttered by the representative of a state that is officially considered ‘inimical’ or unfriendly, the decision-makers must pay attention to these words.

Whether he said it or not, the fact of the matter is that Pakistan has been home to 3.5 million Afghan refugees for 3.5 decades. It is also a fact that public opinion in Afghanistan is not favorable towards Pakistan because of bad relations, etc between the two countries. These refugees could have been our best ambassadors had we treated them with respect and dignity during these last days of their stay here and did not force them into leaving this country without their will.

No matter how it is interpreted and explained, the current policy that we have adopted for their repatriation is not serving Pakistan’s interest in any way. As explained, this is resulting in; a) tarnishing the country’s image abroad, increasing its diplomatic isolation, b) increasing the miseries of the Afghan people who born and lived here, c) further deteriorating Pak-Afghan relations, and d) depriving us of the support and goodwill of the last Afghan men who still have some positive feelings about Pakistan because of the fact that to most of them it has been their home since they came into this world.

This is the story of the Afghan Girl with those haunting eyes. And it seems, it wouldn’t end with her technical deportation. Those eyes will keep on haunting us.