A woman wearing leggings with the colours of the US flag walks along a street of Havana on February 18, 2015. President Barack Obama announced Thursday he will make a landmark visit to Cuba on March 21-22, pledging to address human rights as America pursues a historic thaw with its former Cold War foe. (Photo by Yamil Lage/AFP Photo)

Nepali members of the LGBT community take part in a Gay Pride parade in Kathmandu on August 8, 2017. Scores of gays, lesbians, transvestites and transsexuals from across the country took part in the rally to spread their campaign for sexual rights in the country. In 2013 Nepal introduced citizenships with a third gender option and began issuing passports reflecting the same in 2015. (Photo by Prakash Mathema/AFP Photo)

Irene Bowker, 88 years old at the Punk Rebellion festival at The Winter Gardens, talks to a woman with a tatooed head and mohican haircut in Blackpool, Lancashire, UK on August 6, 2015. A clash cultures at the famous seaside town of Blackpool as punks attending the annual Rebellion festival at the Winter Gardens come shoulder to shoulder with traditional holidaymakers. (Photo by MediaWorldImages/Alamy Stock Photo)

Belgian riot police officers are covered by hay and eggs thrown by demonstrators as farmers and dairy farmers from all over Europe take part in a demonstration outside an European Union farm ministers emergency meeting at the EU Council headquarters in Brussels, Belgium, September 7, 2015. Thousands of farmers gathered in the European capital calling for more help with low prices and high costs. (Photo by Jacky Naegelen/Reuters)

A visitor takes pictures with a smartphone of an artwork entitled “Blue Europe, 2015” by Chinese artist Liu Bolin, on display during the exhibition “Visible Invisible” at the Mudec Museum in Milan on May 14, 2019. Liu Bolin known as “the invisible man” for his photographic self-portraits, focused on a body-painting blending with the surrounding area. (Photo by Miguel Medina/AFP Photo)

In this November 3, 2015 file photo, Afghan Taliban fighters listen to Mullah Mohammed Rasool, the newly-elected leader of a breakaway faction of the Taliban, in Farah province, Afghanistan. Despite US President Donald Trump’s pronouncement that there would be no talks with the Taliban following a series of deadly attacks in Kabul, officials say talks continue, but neither side trusts the other and neither believes the other negotiates independently. (Photo by AP Photo/Stringer)

A group of dust covered child labourers gather for a portrait in the brick kiln in Kathmandu Valley, Nepal, 22 February 2015. Bleak photos identify the children working their fingers to the bone in Nepalís brick kilns. Photographer Jan Mˆller Hansen documented the conditions of the brick kilns in Kathmandu Valley, Nepal between 2013 and 2016 while he lived and worked in the area. Jan estimates between 150,000 and 175,000 people are employed in the 200 brick kilns littering the Kathmandu Valley. (Photo by Jan Moeller Hansen/Barcroft Images)

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)