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 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)

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)

Maudy – Kalulushi, Zambia. Maudy was born in a hut in a small village close to Kalulushi, in Zambia. She grew up playing in the street with the other children in the village, who all attend the same school, where students ages 3 to 10 years old are in the same class. The village has no shops, restaurants or hotels, and just a few children are lucky enough to have toys. Maudy and her friends found a box full of sunglasses on the street, which quickly became their favorite toys. “Toy Stories” project. (Photo and caption by Gabriele Galimberti)

A store mannequin with a protective mask stands before a clothes store as they open for the first time since March during the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic on April 22, 2020 in Berlin, Germany. Small to midsized-shops are opening across Germany this week as state authorities follow a recommendation by the federal government to ease restrictions imposed in March meant to slow the spread of the coronavirus. Some schools are also planning to reopen soon, as are museums and hair salons in coming weeks. (Photo by Maja Hitij/Getty Images)

Wasibi, (r), yawns at backstage before the Algonquin Hotel’s Annual Cat Fashion Show in the Manhattan borough of New York City, New York, U.S., August 1, 2019. The theme of this year's show was “It's a Small World”. The cats represented countries including Ireland, Spain, the United Kingdom and the United States. (Photo by Jeenah Moon/Reuters)

A man rides a horse through a bonfire as part of a ritual in honor of Saint Anthony the Abbot, the patron saint of domestic animals, in San Bartolome de Pinares, Spain, Saturday, January 16, 2016. On the eve of Saint Anthony's Day, dozens ride their horses through the narrow cobblestone streets of the small village of San Bartolome during the “Luminarias”, a tradition that dates back 500 years and is meant to purify the animals with the smoke of the bonfires and protect them for the year to come. (Photo by Francisco Seco/AP Photo)

Beloni (34) gives a bath to his son, 6, on a small street in the neighborhood of Cite Vincent, on March 21, 2016 in the commune of Cite Soleil in the Haitian capital Port-au-Prince. World Water Day, marked on March 22, 2016, is an international observance to learn more about water related issues and to take action for sustainable management of freshwater resources. (Photo by Hector Retamal/AFP Photo)