The festival marks the end of the monsoon season and beginning of autumn. More than hundred girls under the age of nine gathered for the tradition of worshiping young pre-pubescent girls as manifestations of the divine female energy. The ritual holds a strong religious significance in Newar community. It is a community affair held primarily to save small girls from diseases and bad luck in the years to come. Photo: A young Nepalese girl dressed as a Kumari or living Goddess, smiles for camera as she waits for Kumari puja at Hanuman Dhoka, Basantapur Durbar Square in Katmandu, Nepal, Tuesday, September 17, 2013. (Photo by Niranjan Shrestha/AP Photo)

An internally displaced Afghan girl holds a child at a refugee camp in Kabul, Afghanistan May 31, 2016. (Photo by Mohammad Ismail/Reuters)

Young girls attend a training session in MGFSO Olympic reserve school in Moscow on May 30, 2016. (Photo by Kirill Kudryavtsev/AFP Photo)

A girl and boy carry a basket of fish in Kyaukpyu township, Rakhine state, Myanmar October 6, 2015. (Photo by Soe Zeya Tun/Reuters)

An injured girl reacts at a site hit by an airstrike in the rebel-held Douma neighbourhood of Damascus, Syria November 7, 2016. (Photo by Bassam Khabieh/Reuters)

A girl walks an Akita-inu dog dressed in a military uniform in Vladivostok, Russia on April 9, 2019. (Photo by Yuri Smityuk/TASS)

A girl looks on after a fire broke out in a slum in Dhaka, Bangladesh, March 11, 2020. (Photo by Mohammad Ponir Hossain/Reuters)

A girl swings on a rope swing over the Volga River in Zavolzhsk, Ivanovo Region, Russia on June 9, 2020. (Photo by Vladimir Smirnov/TASS)