Ауған қызы: National Geographic бетіндегі сурет

1985 cover photograph on National Geographic magazine

Afghan Girl is a 1984 photographic portrait of Sharbat Gula, an Afghan refugee in Pakistan during the Soviet–Afghan War. The photograph, taken by American photojournalist Steve McCurry near the Pakistani city of Peshawar, appeared on the June 1985 cover of National Geographic. While the portrait's subject initially remained unknown, she was identified by early 2002: Gula, an ethnic Pashtun from Afghanistan's Nangarhar Province, was a 12 year old child residing in Pakistan's Nasir Bagh. In light of the Cold War, the portrait was described as the "First World's Third World Mona Lisa" in reference to the 16th century painting of the same name by Leonardo da Vinci. Gula's image became "emblematic" in some social circles as the "refugee girl/woman located in some distant camp" that was deserving of compassion from the Western viewer, and also as a symbol of Afghanistan to the West.

Sharbat Gula was one of the students in an informal school at the Nasir Bagh refugee camp in 1984. Her photograph was taken by National Geographic Society photographer Steve McCurry, on Kodachrome 64 color slide film, with a Nikon FM2 camera and Nikkor 105mm Ai S F2.5 lens. The pre print retouching of the photograph was done by Graphic Art Service, based in Marietta, Georgia. McCurry did not record the name of the person he had photographed. The photograph, entitled Afghan Girl, appeared on the June 1985 cover of National Geographic. The image of her face, with a red scarf draped loosely over her head and her eyes staring directly into the camera, was named "the most recognized photograph" in the magazine's history, and the cover is one of National Geographic's best known. American Photo magazine says the image has an "unusual combination of grittiness and glamour". Gula's green eyes have been the subject of much commentary.

Interest in the photograph increased after the 9/11 attacks, when the George W. Bush administration began promoting Afghan women's rights during the U. S. military campaign in Afghanistan. Photographs of Gula were featured as part of a cover story on her life in the April 2002 issue of National Geographic and she was the subject of a television documentary, Search for the Afghan Girl, that aired in March 2002. In recognition of her, National Geographic set up the Afghan Girls Fund, a charitable organization with the goal of educating Afghan girls and young women. In 2008, the fund's scope was broadened to include boys and the name was changed to Afghan Children's Fund. A 2019 article in the Indian magazine The Wire that described a 2002 interview with Gula says that she was angered by the photograph being taken and published without her consent. The writer for The Wire suggests that this is because "it is not welcome for a girl of traditional Pashtun culture to reveal her face, share space, make eye contact and be photographed by a man who does not belong to her family."