Every child deserves an education. Unfortunately, young girls and women ― half of the world’s population ― are rarely given the same opportunities as boys to learn, study and succeed.
Globally, 65 million girls are not in school. Out of the 774 million people who are illiterate around the world, two-thirds are women. There are 33 million fewer girls in primary school than boys. And education really does save lives: If every woman around the globe had a primary and secondary education, childhood deaths would be cut in half.
To celebrate International Women’s Day this Women’s History Month, HuffPost rounded up 55 photos of girls going to school around the globe.
The photos feature girls of all ages from Nigeria, Syria, Pakistan, France and more getting an education. Whether they’re walking to school with friends or excited about learning something new in class, these photos are proof that all children should have the right to get an education, no matter their gender.
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1 RussiaGetty ImagesSchool girls attend a lesson at a school in the Tatar village of Belozyorye in Mordovia, Russia, on Feb. 1, 2017.
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2 IndiaGetty ImagesIndian Muslim girls recite the Koran at the Madrasatur-Rashaad religious school in Hyderabad, India, on June 19, 2017.
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3 JapanGetty ImagesSchool girls walk home at Ebisu district in Tokyo, Japan, on Sept. 4, 2017.
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4 ZimbabweRaphael Huenerfauth/Photothek/Getty ImagesA young schoolgirl listens to a concert at the Glen Forest Development Centre on December 3, 2012, in Harare, Zimbabwe.
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5 YemenReutersGirls attend a class at their school (damaged by a recent Saudi-led air strike) in the Red Sea port city of Hodeidah, Yemen, on Oct. 24, 2017.
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6 Sri LankaReutersSchoolgirls stand in front of the stock display board during their visit for an education program at the Colombo Stock Market in Colombo, Sri Lanka, on Nov. 24, 2017.
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7 SyriaReutersGirls attend a war safety awareness campaign, given by Civil Defense members, inside a school in the rebel-held besieged city of Douma, in the eastern Damascus suburb of Ghouta, Syria, on May 2, 2017.
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8 PhilippinesLorgina Minguito / ReutersA woman accompanies some students as they wade in the shallow part of a rocky beach to their school to attend the first day of classes in Sitio Kinabuksan, Kawag village, Subic, Zambales Province, north of Manila, June 1, 2015.
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9 SomaliaSIMON MAINA via Getty ImagesPupils walk on September 10, 2013, inside the Gambool high school in the Garowe region, Somaliland. The school is a project funded by the European Commission and has the capacity for 1,750 pupils, both boys and girls.
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10 GambiaThierry Gouegnon / ReutersTwo school girls walk up Kairaba avenue in Banjul, Gambia, Jan. 24, 2017.
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11 IndiaJonas Gratzer/LightRocket/Getty ImagesChildren sit on the ground with a temporary roof to protect them against the strong sun in a small village called Bilwadi in the state of Rajasthan. The children who come from nomadic families are 6-14 years old and are taught mathematics as well as reading and writing in Hindi. This photo was taken on Oct. 29, 2014.
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12 Hong KongANTHONY WALLACE via Getty ImagesSchool students walk down a street in Hong Kong on July 4, 2016.
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13 IraqGetty ImagesTwo schoolgirls at a school in West Mosul, Iraq, on Aug. 2, 2017.
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14 RussiaGetty ImagesChildren with schoolbags near a shoe stall in the settlement of Teriberka on the Arctic coast of north-west Russia, on April 27, 2017.
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15 BrazilYasuyoshi Chiba/AFP/Getty ImagesGirls attend a class at a school in the forest in Xapuri, Acre State, in northwestern Brazil, on Oct. 8, 2014.
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16 South AfricaSiphiwe Sibeko / ReutersSchool girls walk past riot police standing guard outside Hillbrow magistrate court during an appearance of students who were arrested during a protest demanding free education at Johannesburg's University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa, Oct. 12, 2016.
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17 EthiopiaGetty ImagesYoung girls line up to enter the primary school in Sheno, Ethiopia, on Oct. 18, 2017.
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18 AfghanistanSham Marai/AFP/Getty ImagesAfghan schoolgirls board a bus in Qara Zaghan village in Baghlan province on May 7, 2013.
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19 PalestineGetty ImagesPalestinian schoolgirls wait for a bus that will take them to school outside their home in Gaza City on Sept. 7, 2017.
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20 RussiaNatalia Kolesnikova/AFP/Getty ImagesHigh school graduates celebrate the last day of their classes in Moscow's Red Square on May 25, 2011.
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21 GermanyKonzept Und Bild/Ullstein Bild/Getty ImagesStudents of the 7th and 8th classes swimming during a school triathlon on June 19, 2010, in Berlin, Germany.
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22 HaitiThony Belizaire/AFP/Getty ImagesBrazilian UN peacekeepers distribute juice and crackers to students at the Immaculate Conception School Feb. 6, 2013, in Port-au-Prince, Haiti.
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23 KenyaAFP via Getty ImagesTwo schoolgirls walk toward a commuter train in Kikuyu, Kenya, on Sept. 13, 2016. The railway in Kenya has a long history, with the British laying the country's first rail in 1896.
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24 IranAhmed Jadallah / ReutersSchoolgirls walk down the street in former Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's birth village of Aradan, east of Tehran, March 12, 2008.
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25 EnglandChristopher Furlong/Getty ImagesWithington Independent Girls School students celebrate getting good grades on their A Level exams on August 15, 2013, in Manchester, England.
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26 MoroccoFADEL SENNA via Getty ImagesA Moroccan girl walks to the school in Taghzirt, an isolated village in the el-Haouz province in the High Atlas Mountains south of Marrakesh on March 4, 2016.
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27 Central African RepublicGetty ImagesHigh school girls walk in the city of Birao in the Central African Republic on Dec. 21, 2017.
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28 SpainMarcelo Del Pozo / ReutersSchoolchildren wearing costumes walk during a school excursion to a permanent exhibition at Velazquez research centre in Seville, May 11, 2009.
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29 PhilippinesReutersA girl cries while looking for her mother during the first day of classes at the Rosauro Almario elementary school in Manila, Philippines, on June 5, 2017.
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30 South KoreaEd Jones/AFP/Getty ImagesStudents take the annual Scholastic Aptitude Test at the Poongmun high school in Seoul on November 13, 2014.
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31 EcuadorEitan Abramovich/AFP/Getty ImagesGirls pose at a rural school at La Palizada in Tulcan, Carchi province, in Ecuador close to the Colombian border on Nov. 7, 2012.
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32 PalestineGetty ImagesPalestinian schoolgirls attend a class at a school belonging to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees n Gaza City on Jan. 22, 2018.
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33 BangladeshReutersA Rohingya refugee girl looks out from a makeshift school at the Palongkhali refugee camp near Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh, on Dec. 23, 2017.
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34 NepalEducation Images/UIG/Getty ImagesSchoolgirls in orange uniforms walk to school along a trail around Manaslu Trek, Nepal.
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35 North KoreaEric Lafforgue/Getty ImagesPrimary school students in North Korea on May 16, 2009.
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36 CubaKonzept Und Bild/Ullstein Bild/Getty ImagesSchoolgirls wearing school uniforms on the way home on June 1, 2009, in Trinidad, Cuba.
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37 SyriaReutersGirls dance to celebrate the end of the school year in the rebel-held besieged city of Douma, Syria, on May 22, 2017.
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38 ChinaChina Photos/Getty ImagesStudents read outdoors at the Jigmei Gyaltsen Girls Welfare School on April 21, 2006, in Maqin County of Guoluo Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Qinghai Province, China. The Jigmei Gyaltsen Girls Welfare School, established in 2005, was built to provide free education for impoverished female students in pasturing areas
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39 KenyaTony Karumba/AFP/Getty ImagesSchoolgirls participate in a lesson in Kilifi, Kenya, on June 31, 2010. The students are part of an initiative called "Moving the Goalpost" which sponsors female students from the Kilifi district, where drop-out rates are high due to early marriages, teen pregnancy and a traditional bias toward educating male siblings over female.
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40 BangladeshMajority World/UIG/Getty ImagesChildren learning their lessons at home, in a village in Netrok.
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41 IndonesiaBeawiharta Beawiharta / ReutersStudents hold on to the side steel bars of a collapsed bridge as they cross a river to get to school at Sanghiang Tanjung village in Lebak regency, Indonesia's Banten village, Jan. 19, 2012.
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42 ChinaJohannes Eisele/AFP/Getty ImagesChinese children attend a class at the Jinqao Center Primary School in Shanghai on Sept. 1, 2014.
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43 NigeriaReutersGirls walk to school in the northeastern city of Damaturu, Nigeria, on Feb. 23, 2018.
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44 PakistanReutersGirls in uniform sit along a sidewalk while waiting for school van in Karachi, Pakistan, on Nov. 8, 2017.
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45 AfghanistanWally Skalij/Getty ImagesAfghani girls raise their hands to answer a question in math class.
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46 VietnamChau Doan/LightRocket/Getty ImagesHmong students exercise at Hoang Thu Pho primary school in Bac Ha, Lao Cai, Vietnam.
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47 IndiaGetty ImagesMuslim schoolgirls read outside during a break in Kashmir, India, on June 7, 2017.
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48 FrancePatrick Hertzog/AFP/Getty ImagesGirls hug each other on the first day of school outside the European School of Strasbourg in Strasbourg, France, on Sept. 1, 2015.
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49 MozambiqueThomas Trutschel/Photothek/Getty ImagesStudents in school uniforms pose for a photo on Sept. 29, 2015, in Beira, Mozambique.
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50 IraqThaier Al-Sudani / ReutersGirls walk past a U.S. soldier on a patrol with the Iraqi police in Baghdad's Ameen district, Oct. 14, 2008.
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51 GazaMAHMUD HAMS via Getty ImagesPalestinian girls walk past buildings which were destroyed by Israeli strikes on their way to school in the Shejaiya neighbourhood of Gaza City on Sept. 14, 2014, on the first day of the new school year.
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52 MexicoPedro Pardo/AFP/Getty ImagesChildren play during a break after returning to school following a two-month strike of teachers due to criminal threats, in Acapulco, Mexico, on Jan. 27, 2015.
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53 The United StatesAnn Hermes/The Christian Science Monitor/Getty ImagesStudents listen to instructions during a coding class at The Young Women's Leadership School of Astoria in New York on Sept. 17, 2015.
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54 GhanaMelanie Stetson Freeman/The Christian Science Monitor/Getty ImagesSchoolgirls head home through their cocoa-producing village on Nov. 11, 2015, in Akyekyere, Ghana.
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55 ThailandThierry Falise/LightRocket/Getty ImagesYoung female students in a "pondok," a school providing general and religious studies, on June 29, 2015, in Narathiwat, Thailand.
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