Looking beyond Human Rights and Culture Debates: The Girls Accounts of Main Obstacles Against Girls Access to Education in Northern Nigeria

The debate about the universality and cultural relativity of human rights with respect to the education of the girl child first emerged more than five dec-ades ago and is still on-going. When one considers the fact that the percentages of girls that have never been to school or that have left school midway are on the increase, particularly in the developing countries, it would seems that these debates have yielded no significant positive outcome. I argue that there is a need to look beyond the debate of cultural hindrances to the realization of the education of girls and investigate the real obstacles to the actualization of the world 2015 Millenium Development Goals (MDGs) target on girl’s education. Rather than joining these debates of cultural barriers to girl’s education in Ni-geria, this study position itself in the process of unpacking the militating fac-tors against girl child education in Nigeria which are boxed together under so-cio-cultural norms that creates resistance to realizing the rights of the girl child. Through a participatory approach that gives credence to the girls voices, en-gagement with parents, government, and non-state actors coupled with an in-depth analysis of the literature about the matter, the study has uncovered “chameleonic” barriers to girl’ child’s rights to an education. A concept that shows that in most cases, more than one factor contributes to a girl’s inability to get an education in northern Nigeria. The study concludes that the domi-nant underlying factors contributing to the lack of education of the girls child in northern Nigeria is neither cultural nor societal norms. The problem lies in the lack of other fundamental human rights such as, but not limited to the right to a dignified standard of living, healthcare, and information. I contend that human rights are interdependent; all human rights have equal eminence, and cannot be situated in an order of hierarchy, regardless of their relationship to political, civil, economic, social or cultural issues.