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 “Free Syrian Army” fighter in the Bustan Pasha neighborhood of Aleppo, Syria, August 21, 2013. (Photo by James Lawler Duggan)

Indian artist, Ravi Kali (32), dressed as Hindu goddess Kali, participates in a religious procession for the Hindu festival, Ganesh Chaturthi in New Delhi on September 24, 2015. (Photo by Chandan Khanna/AFP Photo)

A flock of sheep huddles together while snow spindrift is whipped up by strong winds in Swaledale, North Yorkshire, UK on March 17, 2017. (Photo by Paul Kingston/NNP North News & Pictures Ltd)

ABC's “Jimmy Kimmel Live” features a week of guest hosts filling in for Jimmy, starting Monday, October 30, 2017. The guest host for Thursday, November 2 was Jennifer Lawrence with guest Kim Kardashian West (KKW Beauty) and musical guest Linkin Bridge. (Randy Holmes/ABC via Getty Images)

A young girl sells balloons by the Yamuna River as devotees carrying idols of the Hindu god Ganesh, the deity of prosperity, immerse the idol on the last day of the ten-day-long Ganesh Chaturthi festival in Delhi, India, September 15, 2016. (Photo by Cathal McNaughton/Reuters)

Wax figures, including Prime Minister Boris Johnson, US President Donald Trump and Taylor Swift, in the entrance line at Madame Tussaud's in London on July 30, 2020, as the attraction prepares to reopen to the public following the easing of lockdown restrictions in England. (Photo by Kirsty O'Connor/PA Images via Getty Images)

Children pat an elephant at the mobile Diva circus in the town of Molodechno, some 70 kilometers northwest of Minsk on September 3, 2015. (Photo by Sergei Gapon/AFP Photo)