People enjoy carnival while shouting slogans of female empowerment and anti harrassment in Sao Paulo, Brazil on January 28, 2018. The carnival is marked by a lot of fun, but also has space to talk about more serious things – without losing the good mood. Parading for the first time in São Paulo, the Vaca Profana block proposed a reflection on sieges and machismo. (Photo by Cris Faga/Rex Features/Shutterstock)

From house breaking in Johannesburg to hippos on the loose in Tbilisi to rioters attacking a policewoman in Burundi, Reuters photographers tell the story behind some of the most iconic pictures of the year. Here: Protesters drag a female police officer accused of shooting a protester in the Buterere neighbourhood of Bujumbura, Burundi, May 12, 2015. Goran Tomasevic: Protesters started throwing stones at a group of police, who then started to run away. The policewoman in the photo, Medikintos Inabeza, 33, got left behind and then some protesters started to push her, saying that she had shot a female protestor in the stomach with an AK47 rifle. I didn't see anything of that. There were 5 or 10 protesters pushing the policewoman at first, then others came and joined in. Up to 20 or 30 protesters were surrounding her at one point. The protesters kicked and beat her very badly; I also saw a couple of knives. I thought they were going to kill her... (Photo by Goran Tomasevic/Reuters)

Rougine, a 19-year-old female Arab fighter among the Syrian Democratic Forces, made up of US-backed Kurdish and Arab fighters, stands in fatigues embracing another colleague near the village of al-Torshan, 20 km on the outskirts of Raqa on February 6, 2017. (Photo by Delil Souleiman/AFP Photo)

A Romanian female soldier adjusts her helmet before taking part in weapons training with US Marines female counterparts at the Capu Midia Surface to Air Firing Range, on the Black Sea coast in Romania, Monday, March 20, 2017. About 1,200 US and Romanian troops take part in the Spring Storm 17 exercise, meant to simulate defense of the Romanian Black Sea coastline and urban areas. (Photo by Vadim Ghirda/AP Photo)

“Jessica”, a silicon sеx doll for sexual encounters lies on a bed at the “Bordoll” brothel on April 17, 2019 in Dortmund, Germany. Bordoll is Germany's first brothel to specialize in sеx dolls. It currently offers 13 female dolls and one male doll and will soon be expanding its female line-up. Schwarz says “sеx dolls are so popular because the client can do what he wants to and nobody complains”. (Photo by Lukas Schulze/Bongarts/Getty Images)

An Iraqi Kurdish Peshmerga female officer bites a snake while demonstrating skills during a graduation ceremony in the Kurdish town of Soran, about 100 kilometres northeast of the capital of Iraq's autonomous Kurdish region Arbil, on February 12, 2020. (Photo by Safin Hamed/AFP Photo)

Models wearing facekinis, popular with female bathers who want to protect more than just their modesty, pose for a picture on a beach on August 5, 2019 in the Chinese seaside city of Qingdao, Shandong Province of China. (Photo by Xu Chongde/VCG via Getty Images)

A Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) female fighter's braid is pictured while she is carrying her weapon in Tal Samin village, north of Raqqa city, Syria November 19, 2016. (Photo by Rodi Said/Reuters)