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)

Miss Lovely Legs competition at the Pick 'n Pay hypermarket in Boksburg, South Africa, 1980. (Photo by David Goldblatt/Museum of Contemporary Art Australia)

Picture shows a mural painting in Ferrol, on September 2, 2018, during the annual street art festival “Meninas de Canido” set up in 2008 to breathe new life in a dying neighborhood. Angry at the announced death of his neighborhood, Canido, in Ferrol, Eduardo Hermida painted his version of Velazquez's “Meninas” on a wall. An act of protest that gave birth to a festival and gave new colors to this city of Galicia. (Photo by Miguel Riopa/AFP Photo)

In this April 14, 2014 file photo, Hamamatou Harouna, 10, who lost the use of her legs to polio, crawls to the restroom on the grounds of the Catholic Church where she and hundreds of others found refuge after fleeing violence in her village, in Carnot, Central African Republic. Health authorities on Tuesday, August 25, 2020 are expected to declare the African continent free of the wild poliovirus after decades of effort, though cases of vaccine-derived polio are still sparking outbreaks of the paralyzing disease in more than a dozen countries. (Photo by Jerome Delay/AP Photo/File)

A Syrian Kurdish ballet dancer performs in an empty market during a lockdown to curb the spread of the Covid-19 coronavirus in Syria's northeastern city of Qamishli on April 7, 2021. (Photo by Delil Souleiman/AFP Photo)

Liberians stage a rally for justice in front of the Liberia National Police headquarters in Monrovia, Liberia, 12 April 2022. There has been reported rise in mysterious deaths, and mob justice incidents in the country, according to reports. United Voices Against Injustice, an advocacy group, stage a rally to seek proper justice for all the many mysterious deaths, most especially, those alarming ones of recent in Liberia. (Photo by Ahmed Jallanzo/EPA/EFE)

A cow carrying a bell and autumn flowers headgear walks by in front of spectators at the traditional cattle show in Schwellbrunn, Switzerland, 26 September 2022. The traditional show in the Appenzell region is held annually in autumn, when local farmers return from the alp with their groomed and cleaned cows to present them on a show ground. “The most beautiful and best performing cows are awarded prizes”, the Appenzellerland tourism office adds on their website. (Photo by Gian Ehrenzeller/EPA/EFE)

People take part in a military exercise for civilians conducted by veterans of the Ukrainian National Guard Azov battalion, amid threat of Russian invasion, in Kyiv, Ukraine on January 30, 2022. According to a survey conducted by the Kiev International Institute of Sociology (KIIS) from December 2021, 50.2 percent of Ukrainians said they would resist in case of a Russian military intervention into their city, town or village. Every third respondent to the poll said they were ready to engage in armed resistance, and 21.7 percent said they were ready to participate in civil resistance actions. (Photo by Gleb Garanich/Reuters)