A girl competes in a hobby horsing competition in St. Petersburg, Russia, April 21, 2024. (Photo by Dmitri Lovetsky/AP Photo)

Afghan girls ride a donkey along a street in Argo district at Badakhshan province on July 30, 2024. (Photo by Omer Abrar/AFP Photo)

The festival marks the end of the monsoon season and beginning of autumn. More than hundred girls under the age of nine gathered for the tradition of worshiping young pre-pubescent girls as manifestations of the divine female energy. The ritual holds a strong religious significance in Newar community. It is a community affair held primarily to save small girls from diseases and bad luck in the years to come. Photo: A young Nepalese girl dressed as a Kumari or living Goddess, smiles for camera as she waits for Kumari puja at Hanuman Dhoka, Basantapur Durbar Square in Katmandu, Nepal, Tuesday, September 17, 2013. (Photo by Niranjan Shrestha/AP Photo)

Members of a teenage girl gang convincing an unwilling recruit to join the gang, circa 1955. (Photo by Vecchio/Three Lions)

A girl and boy carry a basket of fish in Kyaukpyu township, Rakhine state, Myanmar October 6, 2015. (Photo by Soe Zeya Tun/Reuters)

An injured girl reacts at a site hit by an airstrike in the rebel-held Douma neighbourhood of Damascus, Syria November 7, 2016. (Photo by Bassam Khabieh/Reuters)

An internally displaced Afghan girl holds a child at a refugee camp in Kabul, Afghanistan May 31, 2016. (Photo by Mohammad Ismail/Reuters)