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)

A “nail house”, the last building in the area, sits in the middle of a road under construction in Nanning, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region April 10, 2015. According to local media, the owner of the house didn't reach an agreement with the local authority about compensation of the demolition. (Photo by Reuters/Stringer)

A woman plays billiards during a local championship at a sports hall in Yemen's capital Sanaa on December 16, 2019. (Photo by Mohammed Huwais/AFP Photo)

Palestinian members of Gaza's Bar Woolf sports team perform with fire above the ruins of a building destroyed in recent Israeli air strikes, in Beit Lahia, on May 26, 2021. A ceasefire was reached late last week after 11 days of deadly violence between Israel and the Hamas movement which runs Gaza, stopping Israel's devastating bombardment on the overcrowded Palestinian coastal enclave which, according to the Gaza health ministry, killed 248 Palestinians, including 66 children, and wounded more than 1,900 people. Meanwhile, rockets from Gaza claimed 12 lives in Israel, including one child and an Israeli soldier. (Photo by Mahmud Hams/AFP Photo)

Galapagos – Rocking the Cradle: Four major ocean currents converge along the Galapagos archipelago, creating the conditions for an extraordinary diversity of animal life, April 25, 2016. The islands are home to at least 7,000 flora and fauna species, of which 97 percent of the reptiles, 80 percent of the land birds, 50 percent of the insects and 30 percent of the plants are endemic. (Photo by Thomas P. Peschak for National Geographic/World Press Photo)

Leo, an orphaned Sumatran orangutan, is taken to the Sumatran Orangutan Conservation Programme rehabilitation centre. Leo will join other orangutans who have been reintroduced to the Pinus Jantho nature reserve. The SOCP has gradually formed a completely new wild population of species that have been threatened with extinction. (Photo by Sutanta Aditya/Barcroft Images)

English television personality, Love Island's Faye Winter is seen painted as a Killer Whale as part of a PETA protest photocall for marine animals in London's Piccadilly Circus on November 18, 2022. (Photo by The Mega Agency)

In this picture taken on October 27, 2019 lightening strikes on a building during a thunderstorm in Bangkok. (Photo by Mladen Antonov/AFP Photo)