Child's Rights and the Challenges of Educating the Girl-Child: Assessing the Contributions of UNICEF in Nigeria

Abstract

In 2003, Nigeria domesticated the twin international instruments on child rights, the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child and the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child. The resultant legislation from Nigeria’s domestication efforts is the Child’s Rights Act (CRA) of 2003. Despite the provisions of this legislation detailing the elaborate atlas of rights to be enjoyed by the Nigerian child, their fortune especially that of the girl-child, has not got better. At the base of the contentious forces militating against the rights of the girl-child are the cultural and religious norms that are intrinsically embedded in the dominant patriarchal system prevalent in Nigeria, especially in northern Nigeria. These forces are intricately united in marginalizing and precluding the girl-child from accessing education. Using the lens of radical feminism in combination with human-rights based approach, this paper interrogates the challenges faced by the girl-child in accessing education and the interventionist role played by UNICEF to salvage the situation. The paper finds that although the interventionist program of UNICEF, that is, the Nigeria girls’ education project (NGEP), contributed in re-enrolling over one million out-of-school girls back to school, a lot needs to be done to salvage the girl-child from the doldrums of structural alienation that deprives her of access to education.