France fan before the Russia 2018 World Cup Group C football match between Denmark and France at the Luzhniki Stadium in Moscow on June 26, 2018. (Photo by Axel Schmidt/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)

A demonstrator is carried during a rally in support of a identity check draft law and against delinquency, in Santiago, Chile April 30, 2016. (Photo by Carlos Vera/Reuters)

A bishop walks past a new street-art collage by Italian artist Maupal showing Pope Francis playing tic-tac-toe and drawing peace signs as a Swiss guard keep watches the street near the Vatican on October 19, 2016 in Rome. (Photo by Tiziana Fabi/AFP Photo)

A boy looks on as fire fighters try to extinguish the fire at oil wells, were set on fire by Daesh terrorists as they fled after Al Qayyarah town's cleansing from Daesh militants as the operation to retake Iraq's Mosul from Daesh continues, in Al Qayyarah Town of Mosul, Nineveh, Iraq on November 02, 2016. (Photo by Yunus Keles/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images)

Show promoters for Motolite batteries sit on a jeepney as they pose for photographers during the Manila International Auto show in Pasay, Metro Manila, Philippines on April 4, 2013. (Photo by Erik De Castro/Reuters)

McKensi Pascall is painted by artist Tom Sebazco at Human Connection Arts 8th Annual NYC Body Painting Day in Union Square Park on Sunday, July 25, 2021 in New York. (Photo by Brittainy Newman/AP Photo)

Member of Twycross Zoo, Lily-Jean Morales, seven, visits The Gruffalo Discovery Land, a brand-new four-acre experience at Twycross Zoo, in Leicestershire on April 7, 2022, before it opens to the public on Saturday. (Photo by PA Wire Press Association)