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)

Members of a teenage girl gang convincing an unwilling recruit to join the gang, circa 1955. (Photo by Vecchio/Three Lions)

English singer and songwriter Dua Lipa photographs herself as an “Albanian girl in Albania” in the second decade of August 2022. (Photo by dualipa/Instagram)

“The girl behind the camera and the girl in front of the camera”, May 2012. (Photo by: Mandy Rosen; Source: Flickr)

Girls ride on a donkey cart with grass for animals on the outside of Nangarhar province, Afghanistan May 19, 2015. (Photo by Reuters/Parwiz)

An Afghan girl harvests Cotton buds at a field on the outskirts of Balkh province, Afghanistan, November 15, 2014. (Photo by Sayed Mustafa/EPA)

Girls rest on stairs at the China Digital Entertainment Expo and Conference (ChinaJoy) in Shanghai, China July 27, 2017. (Photo by Aly Song/Reuters)

A girl reacts during a rehearsal for the Independence Day military parade in central Kiev, Ukraine, August 19, 2016. (Photo by Valentyn Ogirenko/Reuters)