Published December 19,2025
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A photograph depicting the quiet strength of a 10-year-old girl in Afghanistan engrossed in her schoolbook has won the UNICEF Photo of the Year 2025 competition.
It was taken by French photojournalist Elise Blanchard in a remote village east of Kabul, the United Nations Children's Fund said on Friday.
UNICEF patron, Elke Büdenbender, the wife of the German president, said that for many girls in Afghanistan childhood means fighting for something that should be a given: the right to learn.
UNICEF explained that the photo of the girl named Hajira represents the quiet but unwavering resilience of millions of Afghan girls who are denied access to secondary education by Afghanistan's extremist Taliban government.
Second prize went to Natalya Saprunova, born in Russia and living in France, for a picture from her reporting in Mongolia, where children suffer from extreme air pollution.
The picture shows toddlers sleeping in a kindergarten around an air filter that is supposed to reduce the concentration of pollutants.
Third place went to Indian photographer Sourav Das, who has often documented the bitter fates of children struggling to survive in the harshest conditions.
The theme is childhood in Jharia, notorious as India's "burning city" and one of the country's largest coal fields for some 100 years. An underground fire smoulders there, causing massive environmental problems.
