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)

Traditional “Tantawawas” bread shaped like children sit on a grave as a Day of the Dead offering at the Villa Ingenio cemetery in El Alto, Bolivia, Monday, November 2, 2020. (Photo by Juan Karita/AP Photo)

French-Swiss street artist Saype poses as he works on his artwork on a floating barge over the Golden Horn in Istanbul, Turkey on October 23, 2020, as part of the “Beyond Walls” project to create a spray-painted “human chain” across the world to encourage humanity and equality. (Photo by Murad Sezer/Reuters)

A monolith placed in the Utah wilderness in November 2020. New clues have surfaced in the disappearance of the gleaming monolith that seemed to melt away as mysteriously as it appeared in the red-rock desert. A Colorado photographer told a TV station in Salt Lake City that he saw four men push over the hollow, stainless steel structure last Friday night. (Photo by Terrance Siemon/AP Photo)

A masked reveller poses near Saint Mark's Square during the Venetian Carnival in Venice January 31, 2015. (Photo by Stefano Rellandini/Reuters)

Rescuers and mother surround Adnan Mohammet Korkut after he was rescued in Gaziantep, southern Turkey, early Friday, February 10, 2023. The teenager was pulled largely unscathed from beneath the rubble of a collapsed building in the Turkish city of Gaziantep early Friday, in a dramatic rescue that belied the reality that the chances of finding many more survivors four days after a catastrophic earthquake killed tens of thousands are shrinking fast. (Photo by IHA via AP Photo)

Australia's Nina Kennedy competes in the women's pole vault final at a Diamond League event in Florence, Italy on June 2, 2023. (Photo by Remo Casilli/Reuters)