People smeared with “Gulal” or coloured powder during celebrations of Hindu spring festival “Holi” in Hyderabad, India on March 7, 2023. (Photo by Noah Seelam/AFP Phoot)

Drinkers leave the bars as police patrol in Soho, in central London on September 24, 2020 as the clock nears 10pm, on the first day of the new earlier closing times for pubs and bars in England and Wales, introduced to combat the spread of the coronavirus. Britain has tightened restrictions to stem a surge of coronavirus cases, ordering pubs to close early and advising people to go back to working from home to prevent a second national lockdown. (Photo by Tolga Akmen/AFP Photo)

Dancers from the McLoughlin school in Glasgow, Scotland put on make-up as they get ready to participate in the 2022 World Irish Dancing Championships on its 50th anniversary, in Belfast, Northern Ireland on April 14, 2022. (Photo by Clodagh Kilcoyne/Reuters)

A four-month-old snow fox cub named “Vesna” (“Spring”) leaps next to a Zoo employee at the Royev Ruchey Zoo in Krasnoyarsk, Russia, on August 6, 2013. (Photo by Ilya Naymushin/Reuters)

Ratana Das, 40, a female vendor, carries sacks full of clothes at a second-hand clothing market early morning in Kolkata, India, March 10, 2016. Das said she was born and brought up in Kolkata and feels proud being a resident of the city that gives her he opportunity to be financially independent. (Photo by Rupak De Chowdhuri/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)

Girls in red neckerchiefs dance on Red Square, with the GUM, the State Department Store and the Historical Museum in the background, during a ceremony to celebrate joining the Pioneers organization and 100th anniversary of the All-Union Pioneer Organization, in Moscow, Russia, Sunday, May 22, 2022. Pro-Communist Russians are trying to preserve the Young Pioneers, which used to be the Communist league for pre-teens in the Soviet Union. (Photo by AP Photo/Stringer)

A girl watches the members of Nepali ethnic Newar community participating in “Jyapu Day” celebrations that marks the end of the harvest season, in Kathmandu on December 26, 2023. (Photo by Prakash Mathema/AFP Photo)