A woman clutches a teddy bear covered in red paint to symbolize blood during a government-approved, anti-violence rally held in the Kazakh city of Almaty on November 26, 2023. Organized by the New People youth movement, roughly 300 people took part. The rally was dubbed “Say No To The Animal World”, with organizers likening violent people to animals. (Photo by Petr Trotsenko/Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty)

The Tianzi Hotel with the shape of Chinese deities Fu, Lu and Shou is pictured on November 20, 2017 in Langfang, Hebei Province of China. The 41.6-meter-tall Tianzi Hotel has an exterior of Chinese Sanxing, whose names are Fu, Lu and Shou with the qualities of prosperity, status and longevity in traditional Chinese culture, in Langfang city. (Photo by VCG/VCG via Getty 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)

Britain's Princess Elizabeth clasps her hands in sympathy as Sergeant Jean Bayliss faints at her feet during an inspection of the guard of honour of the Women's Royal Army Corps at Shrewsbury Castle, Shropshire, on July 6, 1949. (Photo by AP Photo)

Haitians pull a car atop a pushcart in Port-au-Prince, October 11, 1994. The price of gasoline has fallen to about $6 US per gallon since U.S. forces occupied Haiti. Before, gasoline had cost as much as $10 U.S. per gallon. (Photo by Eric Draper/AP Photo)

As cheap Chinese-made motorbikes flood Pakistan’s roads, fans of vintage Vespa scooters are scrambling to find spare parts and preserve models that hark back to a bygone era. Here: A restored Vespa scooter painted in Pakistani truck art style, is parked alongside traditionally-coloured scooters at a Vespa restoration and repair workshop in Islamabad, Pakistan February 27, 2018. (Photo by Caren Firouz/Reuters)

Shortlisted: Pooyan Shadpoor, Houcheraghi. While walking along the shore of Larak, Iran – an island in the Persian Gulf – Shadpoor came across this luminous scene. The “magical lights of (the) plankton ... enchanted me so that I snapped the shot”, he writes. (Photo by Pooyan Shadpoor/2016 EPOTY)

A long exposure image shows star trails from the abandoned submerged orthodox church of St. Nicholas without roof, submerged in the Mavrovo Lake, near Mavrovi Anovi, North Macedonia, 17 March 2019. Constructed in 1850 and submerged in 1952 due to the construction of the hydro system Mavrovo, the church St. Nicholas continues to attract the attention of almost every visitor as it peaks from the water. (Photo by Georgi Licovski/EPA/EFE)