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)

Iranian-Kurdish female fighters hold their weapons during a battle with Islamic State militants in Bashiqa, near Mosul, Iraq on November 3, 2016. (Photo by Ahmed Jadallah/Reuters)

A female army recruit attends a base training at the armored battalion in Setermoen, northern Norway on August 11, 2016. Norway has become the first NATO member to have compulsory conscription for women as well as men in the army. Recently, the first batch of army recruits joined the ranks in The Armored Battalion in the Norwegian Army located in Setermoen in northern Norway. (Photo by Kyrre Lien/AFP Photo)

Convicts showcase creations during a fashion show at female penal colony No 10 in the village of Gornoye, Primorye Territory, Russia on June 7, 2017. Prisoners of the colony sew clothes at a garment factory and every year they celebrate Day of Light Industry by presenting the clothes they made. (Photo by Yuri Smityuk/TASS)

A member of Kyrgyzstan's first female hockey team arrives for a training session in the village of Otradnoye, Kyrgyzstan on February 4, 2020. Based in the remote village of Otradnoe, 249 miles (400 kilometres) east of the country's capital Bishkek, the team comprises of around 15 girls from a local school and uses a flooded allotment to train on during the winter months. (Photo by Vladimir Pirogov/Reuters)

An instructor from the Tianjiao Special Guard/Security Consultant Ltd. Co, smashes a bottle over a female recruit's head during a training session for China's first female bodyguards in Beijing January 13, 2012. (Photo by David Gray/Reuters)

In this Wednesday, March, 5, 2014 photo, Afghan female boxers practice at the Kabul Stadium boxing club, Afghanistan. The women, who are 18 and older, don't have much more than determination, and a trainer who runs them through their paces, watches as they spar, corrects their technique, tells them when to jab, how to protect themselves, when to power through with a left and then a right. (Photo by Massoud Hossaini/AP Photo)

A soldier helps another with her ear protection at the Terningmoen Camp in Elverum, Norway on March 23, 2017. Soldiers demonstrate their skills and tactics during a contract drill as they train to become part of the world's first all-female special forces unit, the Jegertroppen or “hunter troops”. (Photo by Carolina Reid/NBC News)