Cultural violence against the girl-child in northern Nigeria

Cultural violence (CV), as coined by Johan Galtung (1969:1) refers to “aspects of a culture that can be used to justify or legitimize direct or structural violence”. CV makes direct and structural violence socially acceptable. CV can be defined as follows: when a person is harmed as a result of practices that are part of their culture. The emphasis of this research is on Child Marriage as a form of CV. According to the United Nations Children’s Fund “child marriage is any marriage before the age of 18, and one which is usually forced and occurs most often when the bride is 12-16 years old” (UNICEF, 2013:1). This paper will overview the literature relating to CV in the context of child marriage and will present the empirical work to be undertaken 2015-2016. This empirical work will explore cultural factors underpinning the perpetuation of girl-child marriage in (Kaduna state) northern Nigeria. Previous researchers have only concentrated on the effects and consequences of girl-child marriage in Nigeria. This research however, will understand this practice from the perception and practice of the people. The research question is: How do northern Nigerians explain the practice of girl-child marriage? Answers to this question will enable an understanding of how this practice came into existence in northern Nigeria, why it persists and give recommendations to how it can be eliminated. There will be a direct observation and semi-structured interviews will be conducted with stakeholders, community leaders and parents who have either witnessed or given their daughters out in marriage at an early age. To ensure comprehensive data, participants will also be asked to identify people who meet the criteria but who are dissimilar to them in particular ways. A qualitative orientation with an interpretive interactionism approach has been chosen to analyse collected data due its ability to focus on the role of the socio-cultural context. The collection of data has been scheduled for May 2015.