Zarín is special to us. She was ten when she lost her leg, from a mine. When she arrived she was afraid of everything. Mines tear apart body and spirit. Hard to forget, and for a child, impossible. She's lucky to have good parents, who help her and encourage her. With the prosthesis, she learns to walk. She goes back to school, where she comes first in the class.

Then, with the Taliban, the schools are closed to little girls and she has to stay at home. Sadness all round. School is not just for learning to read and do sums: it's a meeting place. A journalist promises she will bring her abroad and help her study. But no matter what she tries, she can't get the visas. Huge disappointment. Zarín asks us for help. It's not allowed, but how can we say no? So we try. Terri, an Italian friend with a big heart and lots of common sense, takes on the cost. We send a teacher to her house every day - someone we can trust, who won't talk.

Every six months Zarín comes to us for the exam. She's doing the writtens in the physiotherapy unit when the religious police arrive. "What are you writing?" Rohafzà, the head physiotherapist, replies promptly: "She's copying medical records." These lads can't read anyhow. Zarín is good at all subjects, especially English, which she learns at once - so well that she goes to teach in the houses of other girls like herself, with a disability. Her father brings her to work on his bicycle, the poor man's taxi. She is still without a burqa. In the street, the religious police threaten them with a baton: "Why is your face uncovered?" "I'm amputated, the burqa gets in the way." Her air of sweetness softens them. They even offer her a lift. "No thank you" - relieved they didn't beat them.

She moves on to computer lessons. These are harder to go to in secret, but she manages. So far so good. Now she's learning this too. Zarín has grown. She is 17 now; she wears a burqa, to feel more protected. The Taliban have gone, and new opportunities are opening up to women. At the Red Cross they're looking for someone for the database on prisoners of war - there are thousands of them, and they need to be entered into the computer. We know that Zarín can do it. Last week she handed in her application. She wrote that she was 18, embroidering slightly. And now she's there for the exam. Fingers crossed.

1 p.m. Out of breath from pedalling, Zarín's father arrives: "They're going to take her, they're going to take her! She starts on Saturday!" He's sobbing, from joy. In spite of the mines, in spite of those who made them, those who sold them and those who planted them. In spite of those who barred her from school, who wanted her ignorant and shut up at home. She will have an occupation, she will support her family. And there's more: this means that competitions are open to women, that others like her can try too.

During the Taliban regime, encouraged by Zarín's results, we helped other girls to study. In secret. We do it, but we don't say so. But Zarín was the first. And that she should be the first to find work gives us immense pleasure. "We'll celebrate, after Ramadan", her father promises. We call the office of the Red Cross that has taken her on to thank them. They reply, precise and chilly, that they took her on because she was the best: "We're not into favouritism". "Oh, terribly sorry." I tell her father, who puffs up like a peacock, with shining eyes. And straight away I tell the physiotherapists.

Alberto Cairo