RENEE MONTAGNE, HOST:
And now to one Afghan girl decades ago who captured the world's attention. Cloaked in a red scarf, looking at the camera with piercing, green eyes, her photograph became an iconic image of years of war in Afghanistan. It reached even into the heartland of the Taliban. When I was in Kandahar a few years ago, I spotted a poster of her image in a coffeehouse there.
DAVID GREENE, HOST:
The girl in that photo is now a woman who had fled Afghanistan all those years ago and now may be deported to her homeland.
STEVE MCCURRY: Sharbat Gula is beloved by all Afghans. She's become a symbol of not only of Afghan refugees but also of Afghanistan itself.
GREENE: The voice there is Steve McCurry, whose arresting image of Sharbat Gula in a refugee camp in Pakistan appeared on the cover of National Geographic magazine back in 1985.
MCCURRY: Her life has been tragic from the beginning. She lost her parents in a bombing in her village, so she was an orphan. She fled to Pakistan as a refugee. She's lived in this refugee camp for some years.
MONTAGNE: Sharbat Gula, now in her 40s, was recently arrested in Pakistan's northwestern city of Peshawar. Her crime - carrying fake identity papers. She pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 15 days in jail and fined 110,000 rupees. That's just over a thousand dollars - a lot of money in that place. On Friday, a judge ordered her to be deported to Afghanistan, but there are reports that Pakistan may be walking back that decision.
MCCURRY: Pakistan perhaps feels a little embarrassed to treat this woman in this sort of disrespectful way, considering her circumstances.
GREENE: Gula suffers from Hepatitis C. She lost her husband and daughter to that same disease. Since news has spread about her situation, there has been an international outcry to ensure her safety. McCurry says he is doing everything he can to help her. He has never forgotten the first time he met her in a refugee camp outside Peshawar, Pakistan.
MCCURRY: Her shawl was ripped. She had a bit of dirt on her face, but she had this kind of glow and this is beauty and just a bit of a haunted quality to her stare.
MONTAGNE: McCurry says he's heard that if Gula does return to her homeland, the president of Afghanistan has said he will present her with keys to a house in Kabul. But...
MCCURRY: Her area, her region has been kind of overrun with Taliban and ISIS militants, so it's - it's a bit dangerous for her to go back to her village. So there's a number of really major concerns about her and the welfare of her children and the fact that she's not well.
MONTAGNE: Photographer Steve McCurry, speaking to us about the plight of an Afghan woman driven from her home by war more than 30 years ago. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.