Internally displaced Syrians who fled Raqqa tie ropes for their tents in a camp in Manbij, Syria on April 6, 2017. (Photo by Rodi Said/Reuters)

Children react after what activists said was shelling by forces loyal to Syria's President Bashar al-Assad near the Syrian Arab Red Crescent center in the Douma neighborhood of Damascus May 6, 2015. (Photo by Bassam Khabieh/Reuters)

Two rescued pangolins sit in a basket during a news conference in Bangkok on June 7, 2012. Thai customs rescued 110 pangolins worth about $35,500 that they say were to be sold outside the country as exotic food. The animals, hidden in a pickup truck, were seized at a customs checkpoint in Prachuap Khiri Khan province, south of Bangkok. (Photo by Sakchai Lalit/Associated Press)

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 Sunday, June 27, 2010 file photo two men compete in an ostrich race at Highgate ostrich farm in Oudtshoorn, South Africa. Clambering onto an ostrich for a ride used to be popular among tourists in a South African town of Oudtshoorn known of as the “ostrich capital of the world”. Not so much anymore. Two major ostrich farms in Oudtshoorn have stopped offering ostrich rides to tourists, responding to concerns about the birds’ welfare. A third farm is sticking with the feature, saying it is regulated and that ostriches do not experience discomfort. The Highgate farm, however, continues to offer ostrich rides. (Photo by Shuji Kajiyama/AP Photo)

Photojournalist Evgeniy Maloletka runs from a blaze in a burning wheat field while on assignment after Russian shelling, a few kilometers from the Ukrainian-Russian border in the Kharkiv region, Ukraine, Friday, July 29, 2022. (Photo by Mstyslav Chernov/AP Photo)

A cat looks on near the Victory Pillar at the ruins of the Serapeum of Alexandria, an ancient Greek temple dating to the Ptolemaic and Roman periods (246 BC – 391 AD) dedicated to the city's protector deity Serapis, in Egypt's northern coastal city of Alexandria on November 24, 2023. The giant Corinthian column, commonly misidentified as “Pompey's Pillar”, is a Roman triumphal column set up in honour of the Roman emperor Diocletian (298–302 AD), and originally supported a colossal porphyry statue of the emperor in armour. (Photo by Amir Makar/AFP Photo)

A Somali man carries a fish at Liido beach in Mogadishu, Somalia on December 29, 2023. (Photo by Feisal Omar/Reuters)