Kabul, Afghanistan: Sharbat Gula, the green-eyed Afghan woman whose photograph as a young refugee girl was published on the cover of National Geographic magazine three decades ago, received a warm welcome on Wednesday from Afghanistan's president after she was deported from Pakistan.

Long the face of Afghanistan's millions of refugees abroad, Gula, now 44 and the mother of several children, has become the most public example of what has become, in effect, the forced return of hundreds of thousands of Afghan refugees and migrants from Pakistan, as well as Iran and Europe.

Gula was arrested by Pakistani authorities two weeks ago on charges of obtaining false identity documents, a common practice among Afghans in Pakistan, who have been subjected to roundups and arbitrary arrests in efforts to force them to return to Afghanistan.

She was sentenced to detention for two weeks, and ordered deported, a move criticized by Amnesty International.

"Pakistan's decision to deport Sharbat Gula is a grave injustice," said Champa Patel, the group's South Asia director. "For decades, she was known as the world's most famous refugee and seen as a symbol of Pakistan's status as a generous host. Now, by sending her back to a country she hasn't seen in a generation and her children have never known, her plight has become emblematic of Pakistan's cruel treatment of Afghan refugees."

Gula was received warmly by President Ashraf Ghani, in line with his government's policies to encourage Afghans to come back to their country, and he handed her the key to a government-provided apartment in Kabul, according to Shah Hussain Murtazawi, a presidential spokesman.

Murtazawi said that the Afghan government had arranged for Gula's release from detention and return to Afghanistan.

Gula's famous portrait as a 12-year-old, taken in 1984 by Steve McCurry, a National Geographic photographer, became an iconic image of Afghan refugees and was widely copied and disseminated. Eighteen years later, McCurry found and photographed Gula as an adult, still living as a refugee in Pakistan.

New York Times