In a world where opening a schoolbook is often taken for granted there are places where the same gesture becomes an act of courage and resistance. This year’s UNICEF Photo of the Year, revealed through the Instagram account @unicef_photo_of_the_year, captures that reality with striking clarity.

The image portrays ten-year-old Hajira, a girl from a remote village in Nangarhar province, east of Kabul, leaning over her open schoolbook. Her eyes are filled with concentration, curiosity, and quiet determination. It is a simple scene, yet profoundly unsettling in what it represents.

The photograph was taken by French photojournalist Elise Blanchard, who has devoted much of her career to documenting the everyday lives of children in Afghanistan. Blanchard met Hajira at a health center, where the girl was recovering after months of illness. Accompanied by a translator, she followed Hajira on her journey back to her village, where the child lives with her family in conditions of deep poverty.

The image forms part of Blanchard’s ongoing series Girlhood in Afghanistan, which explores the lives of girls and young women in Kabul and in mountainous rural areas—inside sewing workshops, gemstone-processing spaces, and clandestine classrooms. Within this body of work, Hajira’s photograph stands out as both a snapshot of gender apartheid and a silent plea for the right to education.

In Afghanistan, more than 2.2 million girls are denied access to school, turning education from a fundamental right into an unattainable dream. Every time a girl opens a book, she quietly but resolutely lays claim to her future, pushing back against political and social forces that seek to confine her. As UNICEF observes, “her eyes seem fixed on the open book on the floor, as if she knows she has very little time to learn.”

In recent years, the consequences of Taliban decrees have become starkly visible: girls are barred from secondary education, and many women are forced to remain at home, stripped of basic freedoms. Against this backdrop, Hajira’s photograph becomes a symbol of strength and hope—a powerful reminder of what education means when it is anything but guaranteed.