Participants race during the Red Bull Box Cart Race challenges in Bo Kaap, one of the iconic neighbourhoods in Cape Town, South Africa on November 6, 2022. (Photo by Esa Alexander/Reuters)

Sunrise at Rockford Common in the New Forest, UK where the heather is in bloom on July 28, 2024. (Photo by Steve Hogan/Picture Exclusive)

Drone photo of a dead humpback whale at Foelle Strand in Loegten Bay, Djursland, Denmark, on April 2, 2025. (Photo by Mikkel Berg Pedersen/Ritzau Scanpix via Reuters)

Grace Ann Nader, Brooks Nader, Mary Holland Nader and Sarah Jane Nader celebrate their new show “Love Thy Nader” at the top of the Empire State Building in NYC on August 26, 2025. (Photo by Erik Pendzich/Rex Features/Shutterstock)

An attendee dressed as Winnie the Pooh talks with a member of the D.C. Metropolitan Police Department during the annual pre-Halloween High Heel Race in Washington, D.C., U.S., October 28, 2025. (Photo by Nathan Howard/Reuters)

In this photo taken June 3, 2009, a female North Korean soldier looks out from behind a barbed-wire fence around a camp on the North Korean river banks across from Hekou, northeastern China's Liaoning province. North Korea's top court has convicted two U.S. journalists, and sentenced them to 12 years in labor prison, the country's state news agency reported Monday. (Photo by Ng Han Guan/AP Photo)

In this January 4, 2016 photo, the weapon of a rebel fighter for the 36th Front of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, hangs from a branch serving as a makeshift clothesline, near a rebel camp, in Antioquia state, in the northwest Andes of Colombia. “We’ll lay aside our weapons, like the accord says, but never hand them over”, says Juan Pablo, a commander of the 36th Front. (Photo by Rodrigo Abd/AP Photo)

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)