Drag king Riss Obolensky performs as drag king Norman Creebs during the Opening Cabaret at The London Clown Festival in London, Britain, on July 8, 2024. (Photo by Hollie Adams/Reuters)

A woman selling souvenirs walks through Kuta beach in Bali June 5, 2008. Indonesia is expected to report tourist arrivals in December this week. (Photo by Murdani Usman/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)

Red-crowned cranes, dancing gracefully in the snowy fields, spread their wings and perform a “courtship dance” at the feeding area of the ”Tsurui Ito Red-crowned Crane Sanctuary” in the village of Tsurui, in Japan's northern island of Hokkaido on February 15, 2025. (Photo by JIJI Press/AFP Photo)

Atsushi Abe and Yumi Adachi from Japan perform in the synchronised swimming mixed duet technical routine preliminary at the Aquatics World Championships in Kazan, Russia July 25, 2015. (Photo by Michael Dalder/Reuters)

Japan's Kana Muramoto and Chris Reed compete in the figure skating team event ice dance short dance during the Pyeongchang 2018 Winter Olympic Games at the Gangneung Ice Arena in Gangneung on February 11, 2018. (Photo by John Sibley/Reuters)

Reenactors playing the roll of Kentucky volunteers, fighting for the United States, fire muskets during a reenactment of the Battle of New Orleans in the War of 1812, marking its bicentennial in Chalmette, Louisiana, January 10, 2015. The participants, some of whom have travelled thousands of miles to join in the event, recreated the five clashes that comprise the battle, which some historians say was key in making the British honor the terms of a peace treaty signed in late 1814. (Photo by Lee Celano/Reuters)

The team from France performs their Free Routine during the Synchronized Swimming Olympic Games Qualification Tournament at the Maria Lenk Aquatics Center in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil on March 6, 2016. The tournament is also a test event for the Rio 2016 Olympics. (Photo by Sergio Moraes/Reuters)