In order to earn enough money to buy her own passage out of the Afghan refugee camp where she lives, Shauzia dresses like a boy, but is forced into panhandling and ends up in jail, gaining hope only when a well-meaning American family rescues her.

In post-Taliban Afghanistan, Parvana is held on a U.S. military base and interrogated as a possible terrorist, reflecting on the previous four years of her life she spent with her mother and sisters while she waits to learn her fate.