France fan before the Russia 2018 World Cup Group C football match between Denmark and France at the Luzhniki Stadium in Moscow on June 26, 2018. (Photo by Axel Schmidt/Reuters)

As the world marks the International Day of the Girl Child, women's rights activists point to progress on a wide array of issues but say more needs to be done to protect girls from child marriage, sexual assault and other forms of exploitation. Here is a selection of pictures showing the daily lives of girls across the globe, all taken by female Associated Press photojournalists. Here: In this December 14, 2015, file photo, a young clown rides in the back of a car following a procession to the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico City. Hundreds belonging to various clown associations made their annual pilgrimage to the Basilica to pay their respects to the Virgin of Guadalupe, Mexico's patron saint. (Photo by Rebecca Blackwell/AP Photo)

In this March 29, 2016 photo, a man shoulders a coffin with the remains of a loved one who was slain more than two decades ago by Shining Path rebels, as he walks to the cemetery for a group burial service, in Ccano, a village in the Huanta area of Ayachcuo department, Peru. Presidential candidate Keiko Fujimori's base of support is in places like Ccano, where promises to build roads, clinics and schools recall her agronomist father’s own legacy of delivering aid to the long-overlooked countryside. (Photo by Rodrigo Abd/AP Photo)

Traffic police stand at the side of a road in Pyongyang on November 25, 2016. (Photo by Ed Jones/AFP Photo)

A Palestinian fighter from Ezz-Al Din Al-Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of the Hamas movement, checks debris at the site of an Israeli air strike in Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip on December 26, 2019. (Photo by Said Khatib/AFP Photo)

“Cub”. In the colony of penguins in South Georgia. (Photo and caption by Ondrej Zaruba/National Geographic Traveler Photo Contest)

ATTENTION! All pictures are presented in high resolution. To see Hi-Res images – just TWICE click on any picture. In other words, click small picture – opens the BIG picture. Click BIG picture – opens VERY BIG picture.

A man fires his pistol in the air during a celebratory rally after the United Nations approved a no fly zone over the country on March 18, 2011 in Tobruk, Libya. Libya declared an immediate cease-fire after the UN vote but reports indicate that Muammar Gaddafi's forces were still shelling two cities. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

Sydney Truba, 11, of Melvindale, Michigan lies in a giant lake of mud during Wayne County's 2011 Mud Day event at Nankin Mills Park July 12, 2011 in Westland, Michigan. The annual event consists of 20,000 gallons of water mixed with 200 tons of topsoil. (Photo by Bill Pugliano/Getty Images)