A man assist trucks carry palm oil fruit on a damaged road at Mesuji Raya village in Ogan Komering Ilir, South Sumatra province, Indonesia, January 11, 2017. (Photo by Budi Candra Setya/Reuters/Antara Foto)

San Diego Ballet School students wear protective masks backstage during a performance of “The Nutcracker”, presented by the San Diego Ballet in a drive-in performance at a parking lot in San Diego, California, December 5, 2020. (Photo by Bing Guan/Reuters)

Members of the Australian cabaret & circus troupe Briefs cool down in a fountain on the Southbank in London, Tuesday, July 19, 2022. Britain shattered its record for highest temperature ever registered Tuesday, with a provisional reading of 39.1 degrees Celsius (102.4 degrees Fahrenheit), according to the country's weather office – and the heat was only expected to rise. (Photo by Frank Augstein/AP Photo)

Members of the Washington Commanders Command Force dance during a timeout against the Seattle Seahawks during the second half at Northwest Stadium in Landover, Maryland on November 2, 2025. (Photo by Geoff Burke/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)

Animal rights activists from People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) stage a “die-in” to mark World Vegan Day in Piccadilly Circus in London, Monday, November 1, 2021. The demonstration sought to draw attention to the suffering and death of animals in the meat, egg and dairy industries. (Photo by David Cliff/AP Photo)

In this aerial view fishing boats are seen on the shore of the Lake Malawi at the Senga village on May 20, 2019 in Senga, Malawi. Hundreds of local traders gather each morning and afternoon at Senga, but fish populations are falling in Lake Malawi, Africa's third largest body of freshwater. (Photo by Gianluigi Guercia/AFP Photo)

A crocodile at a zoo in the southern Taiwan city of Kaohsiung holds the forearm of a zoo veterinarian in its teeth, April 2007. Surgeons in Taiwan have reattached a vet's arm, after it was bitten off by a crocodile as he tried to give it an anaesthetic injection. His attacker is one of a pair of Nile crocodiles kept at Shoushan zoo. Nile crocodiles are known to be man-eaters, but are also listed as an endangered species. (Photo by Frank Lin/Reuters)