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)

Figure skating couple Madison Chock and Evan Bates, of the USA, practice their dance routine during a training session at the 2022 Winter Olympics, Thursday, February 3, 2022, in Beijing. (Photo by Natacha Pisarenko/AP Photo)

Ukrainian Serviceman Oleksii Hodzenko, aka Godzilla, was a civilian journalist. His father, Sergeant chief Dmytro "Godzilla" Godzenko was killed on March 31, 2016 at 6 a.m. in a mortar attack near the village of Zaitsevo near Horlivka in the Donetsk region. Since then Godzilla "junior" has joined the army, at a frontline position held by Ukraine's 503rd Detached Marine Battalion on February 7, 2022 near Verkhnotoretske, Ukraine. Regional tensions remain high as Russia continues to amass soldiers and military equipment along its border with Ukraine, where large swaths of the Luhansk and Donetsk regions are held by Russian-backed separatists. Russia has also moved roughly 30,000 troops into Belarus, which borders Ukraine to the north. American and European officials say they do not whether Russian President Vladimir Putin has made a decision to invade Ukraine, but have issued a series of warnings about the country's assertive military posture. (Photo by Gaelle Girbes/Getty Images)

Students carry a female trainee who has fallen into a stupor during high intensity training at Tianjiao Special Guard/Security Consultant camp on the outskirts of Beijing December 1, 2013. Former Chinese soldier Chen Yongqing has big ambitions for his bodyguard training school Tianjiao, which he says is China's first professional academy to train former soldiers and others as personal security guards. Chen charges 500,000 yuan ($82,400) a year for each protector as China's rich and famous look to bolster their safety and sense of importance. (Photo by Jason Lee/Reuters)

This photo taken on April 16, 2014 shows ethnic Kayan women wearing traditional clothes and bronze rings around tbeir neck in Panpet village, Demoso township in Kayah state, eastern Myanmar. Some ethnic Kayan women, also known as Padaung, begin wearing the bronze rings on their neck and legs from a young age. Usually they start wearing six to ten rings when they are five to ten-years-old and then they put on one more ring a year for years after then. (Photo by Ye Aung Thu/AFP Photo)

“Magician David Blaine's latest stunt boasts lots of high-voltage snap, crackle and pop – but experts say he'll be safe from electrocution as long as he wears his chain-mail suit and metal headgear”. – NBC News. Photo: Blaine stands inside the apparatus, surrounded by a million volts of electric currents streamed by tesla coils. The stunt, sponsored by Intel, is the latest of daredevil endeavors by the magician whose previous stunts included being encased in ice for over 60 hours in Times Square, on October 5, 2012. (Photo by John Minchillo/Associated Press)

“The Reversible Destiny Lofts – Mitaka (In Memory of Helen Keller) is a nine-unit multiple dwelling. It was first completed example of procedural architecture put to residential use. These lofts reflexively articulate the residents’ operative tendencies and coordinating skills essential to and determinative of human thought and behavior; which means to say, the lofts manage, by virtue of how they are constructed, to reveal to their residents the ins and outs of what makes a person, in this case the resident. This is the same set of tendencies and skills to which Arakawa and Madeline Gins gave diagrammatic form in their decades-long research project The Mechanism of Meaning”. – Wikipedia

Photo: The exterior of the concept design home “Reversible Destiny Lofts MITAKA: In Memory of Helen Keller” is seen on October 27, 2005 in Tokyo, Japan. (Photo by Koichi Kamoshida/Getty Images)

An Afghan policeman stands guard as smoke and flames rise from the site of a huge blast struck near the entrance of Kabul's international airport, in Kabul on August 10, 2015. A huge blast struck near the entrance of Kabul's international airport on August 10 during the peak lunchtime period, officials said, warning that heavy casualties were expected. “The explosion occurred at the first check point of Kabul airport”, said deputy Kabul police chief Sayed Gul Agha Rouhani. (Photo by Shah Marai/AFP Photo)