An Afghan burqa-clad woman carries a child as she walks along a road in Herat on October 1, 2023. (Photo by Mohsen Karimi/AFP Photo)

In this Friday, August 9, 2019, file photo, Pakistan Rangers soldiers face Indian Border Security Force soldiers at a daily closing ceremony on the Indian side of the Attari-Wagah border. India's recent clampdown has a long history in Kashmir and the conflict has existed since the late 1940s, when India and Pakistan won independence from the British empire and began fighting over rival claims to the Muslim-majority territory. India and Pakistan have fought two of their three subsequent wars over Kashmir, and each administers a portion of the region. India has long seen the Kashmiri struggle for self-determination as Islamabad's proxy war against New Delhi. (Photo by Prabhjot Gill/AP Photo/File)

Polish artist Agnieszka Pilat poses with the artwork of her robot painting dogs – Basia Spot and Bunny Spot – who have become artists painting on canvases with their paws, at the launch of the National Gallery of Victoria (NGV) Triennial 2023 in Melbourne on April 5, 2023. Pilat works with the Boston Dynamics dogs, training them to paint autonomously through AI technology individually and collaboratively, and will be part of more than 100 local and international artists, designers and collectives presenting at the exhibition opening in December. (Photo by William West/AFP Photo)

A soldier reacts after falling off a horse as members of the King's Troop, Royal Horse Artillery, arrive at Green Park for a gun salute celebrating the King's birthday in London on November 14, 2022. King Charles III is celebrating his first birthday as monarch as he turns 74. (Photo by Daniel Leal/AFP Photo)

An Orchid Mantis (Hymenopus coronatus) is perched on the head of a frog hanging from a tree branch on March 15, 2017 in Padang, Indonesia. (Photo by Riau Images/Barcroft Images)

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)

A dog at the Zoozashchita-NN veterinary clinic in Nizhny Novgorod, Russia on February 19, 2021. On February 13, 13 stray dogs with bright blue fur were found and caught at the Dzerzhinskoye Steklo (Dzerzhinsk Glass) factory producing acrylic glass and prussic acid in the city of Dzerzhinsk. The dogs' fur tested positive for the Prussian blue pigment; now the dogs are under supervision at the Zoozashchita-NN vet clinic in Nizhny Novgorod. (Photo by Mikhail Solunin/TASS)

A male stag beetle walks on a branch in an oak forest near the Spree River in Kersdorf, Brandenburg, Germany, on June 8, 2025. (Photo by Patrick Pleul/picture alliance via Getty Images)