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)

5-year-old Chinese girl Wang Anna prepares meals for her grandmother and great-grandmother at home in Zhuyuan village, Guizhou province, China on March 3, 2017. Chinese girl called Wang Anna, 5, takes care of her ill grandmother and 92-year-old great-grandmother on her own every day in a mountainous village in Zhima town, Zunyi city, southwest China's Guizhou province. Her father went to jail before she was born and her mother remarried after gave birth to her. Although she is just five years old, she started to shoulder the responsibility to look after ill grandmother and elderly great-grandmother. (Photo by Imaginechina/Rex Features/Shutterstock)

As part of FLAIR Melbourne – a Flinders Lane art festival – Melbourne’s Lisa Minogue presents stylised photographic portraits of Australian women of colour, their faces painted vibrantly to accentuate their individuality and encourage the viewer to study each face more closely. Minogue asked each woman the same question: “What do the words “coloured girl” mean to you?”. (Photo by Lisa Minogue/The Guardian)

Members of Japanese idol group Kamen Joshi (Masked Girls) in attires featuring images or names of U.S. President-elect Donald Trump, pose for a photo after their concert at their theatre in Tokyo's Akihabara district, Japan, December 12, 2016. (Photo by Toru Hanai/Reuters)

Elizabeth Hurley (L) and Nicole Scherzinger serve dinner at the BOVET 1822 Brilliant is Beautiful Gala benefitting Artists for Peace and Justice's Global Education Fund for Women and Girls at Claridge's Hotel on December 1, 2017 in London, England. (Photo by Vianney Le Caer/Rex Features/Shutterstock)

A college girl takes part in the Holi festival celebrations in Bhopal, India, 19 March 2019. Holi is celebrated on the full moon day and marks the beginning of the spring season. Holi will be celebrated as the Hindu spring festival of colors across the country on 21 March. (Photo by Sanjeev Gupta/EPA/EFE)

A man carries away an injured girl while walking through debris past in the Achrafiyeh district in the centre of Lebanon's capital Beirut on August 4, 2020, following an explosion at the nearby port of Beirut. (Photo by The Mega Agency/Stringer)

A girl walks in front of a graffiti painted on the wall of a house located inside the 15th-century complex built by Mameluk Sultan al-Ashraf Qaitbey, in Cairo's City of the Dead, Egypt February 13, 2017. (Photo by Amr Abdallah Dalsh/Reuters)