Through the Eyes of a Refugee Population Pasta Tell a Migration Story … With Interviews Tell a Migration Story … With Maps Tell a Migration Story … With Photos Activity Index

<< Haunting eyes and tattered garment tell the plight of a 12-year-old girl who fled her native Afghanistan in 1983 for a refugee camp in Pakistan. Photograph by Steve McCurry

Find a refugee whose photograph was first taken almost 20 years ago.

In 1983, National Geographic photographer Steve McCurry captured the image of a girl from Afghanistan who had walked for more than two weeks before arriving at a refugee camp in Pakistan.

The photograph became a symbol of the strength and the pain of refugees, people who must leave their homes to escape danger or persecution. Due to the strict rules in the girl's culture about taking photographs, especially of women, McCurry was never able to contact this girl to tell her that her picture was on the cover of National Geographic magazine! In fact, he never even knew her name.

The photographer and other people from the National Geographic Society tried for years to find this girl again, even though they knew that the older she got, the harder it would be—especially because Muslim women in this region often wear burkas, traditional garments that cover their faces and most of their bodies. To make matters worse, when they returned to the refugee camp where the photo was taken, it was completely deserted.

Can you help find her?

Younger Xpeditioners: How do you locate a missing person? Ask a lot of questions! Make a list of people who might have known this girl and think about what you would ask them. For example, what might her teacher know about her? What clues could you get from her former neighbors? If you found someone that looks like he or she could be her brother or sister, what might you say?

Older Xpeditioners: Think about how a person's appearance changes when they get older. Use family photographs to select distinguishing features that you, or a sibling, have retained as you got older, such as the shape of your nose, or a scar on your chin. What still looks the same? What has changed?

Draw a picture of the refugee girl, predicting how she would look as an adult. Think about what life might be like as a refugee and how that would affect one's health.

Parents: Discuss with your children how you have taken steps that might help you to find them, if they were unexpectedly lost. For example, many children are taught how to phone home at an early age. You also may have registered your child's fingerprints at a local police station or other government agency. Make sure your child also knows how to find his or her way home.

You also might want to take this opportunity to discuss any incidences in your family history of displacement due to war, poverty, or religious persecution. For example, perhaps relatives were "relocated" to concentration camps in Nazi Germany or Japanese internment camps in the U.S. in the 1940s.