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 goat wearing a sweater walks in a field in New Delhi, India, Thursday, January 17, 2019. (Photo by Altaf Qadri/AP Photo)

Chelyabinsk Airport employees take part in an exercise to evacuate aircraft passengers showing symptoms of the 2019-nCoV pneumonia-like coronavirus on February 5, 2020. (Photo by Nail Fattakhov/TASS)

A PSE&G utility worker watches the Navy's Blue Angels and the Air Force's Thunderbirds conduct “a collaborative salute” to honor those battling the COVID-19 pandemic with a flyover of New York and New Jersey, Tuesday, April 28, 2020, in this view from Jersey City, N.J. (Photo by Charles Sykes/Invision/AP Photo)

In this photo released by the Alaska National Guard, Alaska Army National Guard soldiers use a CH-47 Chinook helicopter to removed an abandoned bus, popularized by the book and movie “Into the Wild”, out of its location in the Alaska backcountry Thursday, June 18, 2020, as part of a training mission. Alaska Natural Resources Commissioner Corri Feige, in a release, said the bus will be kept in a secure location while her department weighs various options for what to do with it. (Photo by Sgt. Seth LaCount/Alaska National Guard via AP Photo)

Russian policemen detain participants of an unauthorized “Russian March 2020: For freedom and justice! We go out to say that Russian lives matter” organised by Russian nationalists on the National Unity Day in Moscow, Russia, 04 November 2020. Russian nationalists demand freedom for political prisoners in prisons and a fair investigation into the deaths of political prisoners, including representatives of radical movements who were killed during detention or found dead in places of detention. (Photo by Sergei Ilnitsky/EPA/EFE)

Robert Burck, better known as the “Naked Cowboy”, falls in the snow during a nor'easter storm in Manhattan, New York City on December 17, 2020. (Photo by Carlo Allegri/Reuters)

Waitresses wearing protective masks, face-shields and gloves to prevent infections following the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak, gesture to customers toasting glasses at the cheerleader-themed restaurant “Cheers One” in Tokyo, Japan on May 11, 2020. (Photo by Kim Kyung-Hoon/Reuters)