my name is Carrie Regan and I was the
Associate Producer for the Explorer team
that went in search of the Afghan girl
she was the subject of one of the most
iconic National Geographic covers ever
her eyes said so much there was so much
pain that they conveyed what Steve
McCurry took this photo back in 1984 it
was a fleeting moment and then she was
gone and he was gone I was in a refugee
camp outside of Peshawar Pakistan one
morning I just by chance happened to
walk past a school I just wandered in
and I saw this little girl in the corner
of the room with these incredible
intense eyes I don’t think I took more
than five or 10 frames ended up on the
cover of the National Geographic in June
of 1985 and after that we had literally
thousands of people inquiring how they
can help her and who was she after 9/11
when Afghanistan suddenly came back in
the news there was a renewed interest in
her people always were curious what
would happen to her where is she how can
we help her so we thought it was worth
trying to locate her but we we thought
it would practically would take a
miracle to find her we didn’t have her
name we didn’t know her tribe we didn’t
know where she lived I honestly didn’t
think we were ever going to find her it
had been 17 years people go missing
constantly and Afghanistan what are the
odds that we’re going to go and find
this woman when all we have is a
photograph to go on the only clue we had
to actually try and find her was I had
photographed her in this school and I
was trying to find the teacher
we send photographs to our fixer and he
distributed them to elders in the
refugee camp
we took her photograph around to
literally hundreds of people who can
suddenly we found ourselves in the
situation with her a lot of young Afghan
women who were claiming to be the Afghan
girl and a lot of them claimed to
remember me and remember the photograph
and it just simply wasn’t the case we
looked at all the different technologies
that could be used to positively
identify a person we had a gentleman who
would take sketches of children and he
would age them we also used an iris scan
recognition company we simply had to
find the right identify the right right
woman it was the Afghan girl when the
crew first arrived and they were showing
the photo around there were a couple
guys who said you know we know this girl
she was in the tent next to us after a
couple weeks of looking for her suddenly
we just got lucky and one man claimed to
know her brother and you know I thought
oh this is just you know a boondoggle
this is going to be another false lead
but her brother showed up and her
brother had the same bright eyes that
she did
we got a phone call and said we have her
we’re going to bring her to the village
elders home the woman can go in and meet
her I was the only woman on the crew and
so I walked into this room and I saw her
sitting in the back and she had her head
covered with a black scarf if I had the
photograph in my hand the original photo
I was looking at it and looking at her
face looking at the moles and I looked
at the flecks in her eyes and they all
lined up for the first time I thought oh
my god I think we’ve actually found her
I think this could be the Afghan girl
and finally this anonymous girl who had
been an icon for so long has a name
sharbat gula to be able to produce a
program that moved people that move
people to come together and donate money
over a million dollars to help build
schools for young girls in Afghanistan
it really was the pinnacle of my career
with National Geographic Explorer
Associate Producer for the Explorer team
that went in search of the Afghan girl
she was the subject of one of the most
iconic National Geographic covers ever
her eyes said so much there was so much
pain that they conveyed what Steve
McCurry took this photo back in 1984 it
was a fleeting moment and then she was
gone and he was gone I was in a refugee
camp outside of Peshawar Pakistan one
morning I just by chance happened to
walk past a school I just wandered in
and I saw this little girl in the corner
of the room with these incredible
intense eyes I don’t think I took more
than five or 10 frames ended up on the
cover of the National Geographic in June
of 1985 and after that we had literally
thousands of people inquiring how they
can help her and who was she after 9/11
when Afghanistan suddenly came back in
the news there was a renewed interest in
her people always were curious what
would happen to her where is she how can
we help her so we thought it was worth
trying to locate her but we we thought
it would practically would take a
miracle to find her we didn’t have her
name we didn’t know her tribe we didn’t
know where she lived I honestly didn’t
think we were ever going to find her it
had been 17 years people go missing
constantly and Afghanistan what are the
odds that we’re going to go and find
this woman when all we have is a
photograph to go on the only clue we had
to actually try and find her was I had
photographed her in this school and I
was trying to find the teacher
we send photographs to our fixer and he
distributed them to elders in the
refugee camp
we took her photograph around to
literally hundreds of people who can
suddenly we found ourselves in the
situation with her a lot of young Afghan
women who were claiming to be the Afghan
girl and a lot of them claimed to
remember me and remember the photograph
and it just simply wasn’t the case we
looked at all the different technologies
that could be used to positively
identify a person we had a gentleman who
would take sketches of children and he
would age them we also used an iris scan
recognition company we simply had to
find the right identify the right right
woman it was the Afghan girl when the
crew first arrived and they were showing
the photo around there were a couple
guys who said you know we know this girl
she was in the tent next to us after a
couple weeks of looking for her suddenly
we just got lucky and one man claimed to
know her brother and you know I thought
oh this is just you know a boondoggle
this is going to be another false lead
but her brother showed up and her
brother had the same bright eyes that
she did
we got a phone call and said we have her
we’re going to bring her to the village
elders home the woman can go in and meet
her I was the only woman on the crew and
so I walked into this room and I saw her
sitting in the back and she had her head
covered with a black scarf if I had the
photograph in my hand the original photo
I was looking at it and looking at her
face looking at the moles and I looked
at the flecks in her eyes and they all
lined up for the first time I thought oh
my god I think we’ve actually found her
I think this could be the Afghan girl
and finally this anonymous girl who had
been an icon for so long has a name
sharbat gula to be able to produce a
program that moved people that move
people to come together and donate money
over a million dollars to help build
schools for young girls in Afghanistan
it really was the pinnacle of my career
with National Geographic Explorer
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