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)

An Okinawan woman in a kimono checks her phone before attending a ceremony on Coming of Age Day on January 13, 2019 in Okinawa City, Japan. Coming of Age Day is a Japanese holiday held every January to celebrate people who have reached 20 – the official age of adulthood in Japan. Despite being a solemn affair in some parts of Japan, Okinawans have become known for their flamboyant and occasionally boisterous celebrations. (Photo by Carl Court/Getty Images)

Umbrellas are placed over the statute of the Beatles, during a photocall, on Liverpool's waterfront, in Liverpool, England, Wednesday, March 22, 2017. The city of Liverpool is getting set to celebrate the half-centenary of “Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band”, one of the most influential albums by local heroes The Beatles. (Photo by Peter Byrne/PA Wire via AP Photo)

This picture taken on April 12, 2017 shows men carrying bamboo through a forest near Dashan village near the city of Lin'an, Zhejiang Province. Lin'an is in a area of eastern Zhejiang province whose rich bamboo forests are estimated to supply up to two-thirds of China's bamboo shoots, plus a range of other products derived from the fast-growing plant that are produced both for domestic and overseas markets. (Photo by Johannes Eisele/AFP Photo)

Schoolchildren from local schools take part in the children's races prior to the annual Pancake race in Olney, Buckinghamshire, England, Tuesday, February 25, 2020. Every year women clad in aprons and head scarves from Olney and the city of Liberal, in Kansas, USA, run their respective legs of the race with pancakes in their pans. According to legend, the Olney race started in 1445 when a harried housewife arrived at church on Shrove Tuesday still clutching her frying pan with a pancake in it. (Photo by Alastair Grant/AP Photo)

REUTLINGEN, GERMANY - NOVEMBER 17: Students hang out finished parchment leather at the LGR (Lederinstitut Gerberschule Reutlingen) tannery school on November 17, 2010 in Reutlingen, Germany. Even in early antiquity and up their hair or dried goat and sheep skins were used as material for documents. In the small Asian city Pergamon these skins were processed in large quantities for this purpose, so they formed the main trading arm of the city, of which the name is parchment is derived. In medieval times, reached the parchment is of great importance, it was such as France's production under the supervision of the University of Paris. Even now, important documents, placed on their unlimited shelf life as possible large value (eg diplomas, addresses, memory, writings, documents for primary and keystones) written on parchment...

Blind and visually impaired Palestinian students walk down the stairs at a school, where they are taught English through song and music, at a school in the West Bank city of Hebron March 2, 2016. Palestinian students at a school for the blind in the West Bank are learning English through song, a welcome departure from using braille and memorising grammar rules. While students are delighted with the change, some parents in the religiously conservative town of Hebron are concerned that using music in the classroom jars with Islamic tradition. (Photo by Ammar Awad/Reuters)

A hostage runs towards a police officer outside Lindt cafe, where other hostages are being held, in Martin Place in central Sydney December 15, 2014. Two more hostages have run out of the cafe at the center of a siege in Sydney, Australia's largest city, according to a Reuters witness at the site. The two women were both wearing aprons indicating they were staff at the Lindt cafe where a gunman has been holding an unknown number of hostages for several hours. Three men had earlier run out of the cafe. (Photo by Jason Reed/Reuters)