Girls at school in Afghanistan. Photo credit: Sanaullah SEIAM / AFP / Profimedia
An image depicting the silent power of a 10-year-old girl from Afghanistan absorbed by a school textbook has won the Photo of the Year 2025 competition, organized by UNICEF, informs the German agency DPA, cited by Agerpres.
The photo was taken by French photojournalist Elise Blanchard in an isolated village east of Kabul, the United Nations Children's Fund said on Friday.
Elke Büdenbender, wife of the German president and UNICEF patron, said that for many girls in Afghanistan, childhood is a struggle for something that should be taken for granted: the right to learn.
UNICEF explained that the photo of this girl, named Hajira, symbolizes the silent but steadfast resistance of millions of Afghan girls who have been denied access to secondary education by the extremist Taliban government.
Photos of children from Mongolia and India, also awarded by UNICEF
The second prize was won by photographer Natalya Saprunova, born in Russia but living in France, for a photo from Mongolia, where children suffer from extreme air pollution.
The image shows several children from a kindergarten sleeping around an air filter that is supposed to reduce the concentration of pollutants.
Third place went to the Indian photographer Sourav Das, who often documented the cruel fate of children struggling to survive in harsh conditions.
The subject of his photography is his childhood in Jharia, a vast mining field in India, nicknamed the “burning city”. The underground fire, which has been burning for about 100 years, causes huge environmental problems.
