-Introduction
-Pre-Soviet History
-Pashtun People
-Soviet Invasion
-The Afghan Girl
-End of Occupation
-Taliban Rule
-The Search
-Sharbat's Identity
-Family Life-
-The 2nd Article
-Conclusions
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National Geographic spliced the images, from 1984 and 2001, into a full page spread for their April 2002 Issue. Although it may initially appear that the image captures two separate women. This image features the same woman at different time periods in her life. Both pictures portray the woman veiled as is required in her culture. The significant difference between these two photos is the way in which she is veiled. Her hair is showing in the picture of her as a girl taken at the school in the refugee camp where she lived. At her young age she was probably not restricted to the extent that she is later in her life after she was married. In fact, for the second image, taken 17 years later, the photographer had to ask her husband's permission just to be able to see her face, and she was not permitted to show her hair. I think that a significant part of what is being shown to the reader through this image is that even as a refugee trying to escape the hardships that have befallen her people, she is still bound to the customs that restrict her appearance in public. Though 17 years have past and her country has experienced many regime changes, the restrictions placed on the women in her culture have not changed, and at times become more stringent.

Many of the physical features are the same in both images, and indeed were used to identify that the woman found in Afghanistan 17 years later was indeed the same person. The eyes, a scare on the woman's nose, her eyebrows, and the structure of the face were all used to establish that the photographer had found the "Afghan Girl".