IN June 1985, an arresting image of a green-eyed young Afghan girl became the subject of one of the most iconic National Geographic covers of all time. Photographed by Steve McCurry at a refugee camp in Peshawar, Sharbat Gula was only 12 years old when she made the magazine’s cover. Her unwavering stare, a mix of suffering and resilience, symbolised Afghanistan’s war turmoil. Her arrest this week in Peshawar, on charges of fraudulently obtaining a Pakistani national identity card, comes as authorities intensify their crackdown on illegal Afghan refugees. If convicted, she can face 14 years in prison and a hefty fine. Legally, her arrest is justified because information was falsified for the purposes of an identity card. Nonetheless, certain factors must be considered: firstly, in tribal communities Afghan women are unaware of decisions taken on their behalf. And, as a poor widow in her forties, her personal circumstances might not have warranted her return to war-torn Afghanistan. That Sharbat Gula’s plight reflects a bigger problem must be considered as the government pushes to repatriate Afghan refugees despite the Taliban resurgence in Afghanistan. It makes sense then that most refugees are reluctant to return to a country battered by relentless cycles of war and chaos. After all, Afghans have become the second-largest group seeking asylum in Europe after Syrians.

Meanwhile, with only about 1.5m of the 2.5m Afghan refugees in Pakistan registered, the rest live in fear of arrest and deportation. Desperate, they resort to bribing officials for false identity cards — and Sharbat Gula’s family may have done the same. Even if on humanitarian grounds alone, the government must release her. Yes, one could argue why she should be treated as an exception when hundreds share her fate. If only because her life has been hard and sad, she deserves a country to call her home. Her arrest — three decades after that haunting first photograph was taken — is another reminder that the suffering of Afghan people must never be forgotten.

Published in Dawn, October 29th, 2016