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)

Indian Runner ducks march past farm buildings at the Vergenoegd wine estate near Cape Town, South Africa, May 16, 2016. Each day, a quack squad of killer ducks are released for the first of two sorties at South Africa's Vergenoegd wine farm in Stellenbosch. Their mission – seek and destroy thousands of pests out to ruin the season's harvest. Fanning out across the vineyards, some 1,000 Indian Runner ducks hone in on their hidden targets with uncanny precision, locating the tiny white dune snails feasting on budding vines. (Photo by Mike Hutchings/Reuters)

Films that are being screened are advertised in a makeshift cinema located under a bridge in the old quarters of Delhi, India May 25, 2016. A makeshift cinema hall under a 140-year-old bridge in the Indian capital is allowing poor rickshaw pullers and migrant labourers to escape daily hardship and sweltering heat into a world of Bollywood song, dance and romance. With the rusty iron floor of the bridge as its ceiling and some old rags acquired on the cheap from a nearby crematorium serving as curtains and floor mats, the cinema shows four films a day. (Photo by Cathal McNaughton/Reuters)

If the most popular foods of Rio de Janeiro have one thing in common, it is their informality. You can find fine restaurants in the city, but they do not set Rio apart from other places. What does set it apart, and what invariably brings its residents, known as "Cariocas," together is the unpretentious food they eat in bright, loud, crowded bars and restaurants, on busy street corners, or after a day at the beach. Here: A view of traditional bolinhos de bacalhau (fried codfish balls) in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, May 7, 2016. (Photo by Sergio Moraes/Reuters)

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)

In this Thursday, August 17, 2017 photo, a troupe charges and fires their rifles during Tabourida, a traditional horse riding show also known as Fantasia, in Mansouria, near Casablanca, Morocco. Thousands gathered recently in Mansouria, a small town south of the capital Rabat, to attend one of the oldest festivals in Morocco. Nineteen horse troupes came from different parts of the kingdom to celebrate a three-day event that blends courage, skill and tradition. (Photo by Mosa'ab Elshamy/AP Photo)

Students of the "Escola de Papai Noel do Brasil" (Brazil's school of Santa Claus) travel on a ferry through Guanabara bay, during their graduation ceremony in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, November 10, 2015. The school holds 4 days' lessons in Santa-training, teaching Christmas carols, how to interact with children, and also how to wear the heavy red suit in Rio's typical 104-degree (40 degrees celsius) summer weather that is common around the holidays. (Photo by Pilar Olivares/Reuters)

A protester gestures after he saw a dead protester in Kampala, Uganda February 15, 2016. At least one person has been killed in Uganda's capital Kampala as police clashed with opposition supporters after briefly detaining a top presidential candidate twice as he tried to hold campaign rallies days before a general election. Several people were wounded in the clashes as police fired bullets and tear gas while opposition supporters hurled rocks and erected street barricades in the capital's Wandegeya suburb, witnesses said according to a Reuters news agency report. (Photo by Goran Tomasevic/Reuters)