A group of friends react during “Ladies Day” at the Randox Grand National Festival held at the Aintree Racecourse near Liverpool, Britain, 12 April 2024. The Grand National Festival is held over three days, culminating in the world famous 6.9 kilometer handicapped steeplechase, running for the 176th time in 2024. (Photo by Adam Vaughan/EPA/EFE)

A bishop walks past a new street-art collage by Italian artist Maupal showing Pope Francis playing tic-tac-toe and drawing peace signs as a Swiss guard keep watches the street near the Vatican on October 19, 2016 in Rome. (Photo by Tiziana Fabi/AFP Photo)

This May 11, 2016 photo shows the backside of a bus decorated with a provocative mural, in Acapulco, Mexico. (Photo by Enric Marti/AP Photo)

Women walk past a pile of rubbish bags on a street during a strike by garbage collectors demanding delayed salaries in Sanaa, Yemen May 8, 2017. (Photo by Khaled Abdullah/Reuters)

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 Fulani woman fixes her head scalf on the street of Dapchi, Yobe state, Nigeria on February 27, 2018. (Photo by Afolabi Sotunde/Reuters)

A woman wearing a face mask as a precaution against the COVID-19 while using smartphone in a subway train in Hong Kong, Thursday, February 27, 2020. As the worst-hit areas of Asia continued to struggle with a viral epidemic, with hundreds more cases reported Thursday in South Korea and China, worries about infection and containment spread across the globe. (Photo by Kin Cheung/AP Photo)

Beesan al-Jubeh, (L), Palestinian under-10 national karate champion, trains with her father Sami (R) and other family members, all wearing face masks and gloves due to the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic, outside their house in the city of Hebron in the Occupied West Bank on April 9, 2020. (Photo by Hazem Bader/AFP Photo)