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)

Women quench their thirst with the tap water on a hot summer afternoon during heatwave in Prayagraj on June 10, 2024. India's heatwave is the longest ever to hit the country, the government's top weather expert said on June 10 as he warned people will face increasingly oppressive temperatures. Parts of northern India have been gripped by a heatwave since mid-May, with temperatures soaring over 45 degrees Celsius (113 degrees Fahrenheit). (Photo by Anil Shakya/AFP Photo)