A Chinese girl dressed in Qing Dynasty attire takes photographs of another near the Forbidden city in Beijing, China, Sunday, July 21, 2024. (Photo by Vincent Thian/AP Photo)

Schoolchildren with face paint resembling tigers take part in a “Kids for Tigers” campaign in Bangalore, India 27 January 2023. The campaign tries to raise awareness on environmental education with outreach programs, workshops, and information on saving tigers in schools and colleges across the country. (Photo by Jagadeesh N.V./EPA/EFE)

Indian school children wearing traditional Punjabi attire sit as they take part in the full and final dress rehearsal for India's Independence Day parade and celebrations in Amritsar, India, 13 August 2016. India's 70th Independence Day will be celebrated on 15 August, to commemorate its independence from British rule and its birth as a sovereign nation on that day in 1947. (Photo by Raminder Pal Singh/EPA)

A devotee, dressed as Hindu God Shiva, looks out from a window as he waits to perform during the annual Shiva Gajan religious festival on the outskirts of Agartala, India April 13, 2018. (Photo by Jayanta Dey/Reuters)

Indian youth practice a bike stunt ahead of a procession marking the annual Rath Yatra or chariot festival of Hindu deity Lord Jagannath in Ahmedabad, India, Wednesday, June 22, 2022. The festival is scheduled to be celebrated on July 1, 2022. (Photo by Ajit Solanki/AP Photo)

A woman dressed in traditional attire participates in a procession to mark Gudi Padwa or the Marathi New Year in Mumbai, India, Tuesday, April 9, 2024. (Photo by Rajanish Kakade/AP Photo)

An Indian Muslim worker applies colors on Kalavas (sacred threads) in Ajmer in the Indian state of Rajasthan on May 24, 2018. (Photo by Himanshu Sharma/AFP Photo)

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)