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)

Girls stand on the rocks consulting a magazine as they carry their trays with fruits for sell, in Dakar, Senegal on February 28, 2021. (Photo by Zohra Bensemra/Reuters)

An Afghan girl stand in the doorway of her home in Kabul, Afghanistan, Monday, March 29, 2021. (Photo by Rahmat Gul/AP Photo)

A girl plays in a waterlogged street following a heavy monsoon rainfall in Mumbai on June 9, 2021. (Photo by Sujit Jaiswal/AFP Photo)

In this Monday, June 29, 2020 a man wearing a face mask to protect against coronavirus, walks past a hair product billboard on the street in Soweto, Johannesburg, South Africa. Africa now has more than a half-million confirmed coronavirus cases as the continent-wide total is now over 508,000 after South Africa recorded another day of more than 10,000 confirmed cases as a new global hot spot. (Photo by Themba Hadebe/AP Photo/File)

A photographer takes pictures near an inflated Master Yoda character hot air balloon during the 33rd annual QuickChek New Jersey Festival of Ballooning at Solberg Airport Friday, July 24, 2015, in Readington, N.J. The festival which runs through Sunday, July 26, 2015, will feature as many as 100 balloons, including many large, shaped balloons of Darth Vader, an American Flag, a giant whale, a Panda Bear, and a baby dinosaur. (Photo by Mel Evans/AP Photo)