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)

Actress Edy Williams attends the 58th Annual Academy Awards on March 24, 1986 at Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Ron Galella/WireImage)

This photo taken on October 8, 2017 shows dancers posing in formation to celebrate the upcoming Party Congress, in Rongan in China' s southern Guangxi region. China will convene its 19 th Party Congress on October 18, state media said, a key meeting held every five years where President Xi Jinping is expected to receive a second term as the ruling Communist Party' s top leader. (Photo by AFP Photo/Stringer)

Antrim's Orlaith Prenter and Cliodhna McElroy of Fermanagh challenge for the ball in the TG4 All-Ireland Ladies Football Junior Championship Final, at Croke Park, Dublin on July 31, 2022. P(Photo by Tom Maher/INPHO)

American media personality, socialite and model Kylie Kristen Jenner and American model Kendall Nicole Jenner are launching a new joint makeup line in the last decade of March 2022. (Photo by Kyliejenner/Instagram)

A female Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) fighter stands near a security position in Sinjar, March 13, 2015. Women fighters at a Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) base on Mount Sinjar in northwest Iraq, just like their male counterparts, have to be ready for action at any time. Smoke from the front line, marking their battle against Islamic State, which launched an assault on northern Iraq last summer, is visible from the base. Many of the women have cut links with their families back home; the fighters come from all corners of the Kurdish region. (Photo by Asmaa Waguih /Reuters)

A female Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) fighter works on her laptop while watching a Kurdish TV station at a base in the Sinjar mountains, March 11, 2015. Women fighters at a Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) base on Mount Sinjar in northwest Iraq, just like their male counterparts, have to be ready for action at any time. Smoke from the front line, marking their battle against Islamic State, which launched an assault on northern Iraq last summer, is visible from the base. Many of the women have cut links with their families back home; the fighters come from all corners of the Kurdish region. (Photo by Asmaa Waguih/Reuters)

A fuel rod is inserted into a reactor vessel inside the No. 1 reactor building at Kyushu Electric Power's Sendai nuclear power station in Satsumasendai, Kagoshima prefecture, Japan, July 8, 2015. Kyushu Electric Power Co started loading uranium fuel rods into a reactor on Tuesday, marking the first attempt to reboot Japan's nuclear industry in nearly two years after the sector was shutdown following the 2011 Fukushima disaster. (Photo by Issei Kato/Reuters)