A couple poses for wedding photos in front of the Saigon Opera House in Ho Chi Minh City on December 7, 2023. (Photo by Nhac Nguyen/AFP Photo)

A child and any Asiatic Lion look at each other through a glass at Rome's Zoo, Thursday, March 7, 2024. (Photo by Gregorio Borgia/AP Photo)

A model falls as she presents a creation by fashion designer Limak during the Colombo Fashion Week in Colombo on March 7, 2024. (Photo by Ishara S. Kodikara/AFP Photo)

Spectators on day seven of the 2024 Wimbledon Championships at the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club, London on Sunday, July 7, 2024. (Photo by Jordan Pettitt/PA Images via Getty Images)

A model presents a creation for Iris Van Herpen during the Women's Haute-Couture Fall/Winter 2025-26 collection show in Paris, on July 7, 2025. (Photo by Thomas Samson/AFP Photo)

Chinese women run with a ball on a snow covered field in Shenyang in China's northeastern Liaoning province during International Women's Day on March 8, 2018. International Women's Day is celebrated on March 8 every year and commemorates the movement for women's rights. (Photo by AFP Photo/Stringer)

As part of FLAIR Melbourne – a Flinders Lane art festival – Melbourne’s Lisa Minogue presents stylised photographic portraits of Australian women of colour, their faces painted vibrantly to accentuate their individuality and encourage the viewer to study each face more closely. Minogue asked each woman the same question: “What do the words “coloured girl” mean to you?”. (Photo by Lisa Minogue/The Guardian)

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)