Who is violating the right to education of these children? Is it the parents or the school? A critical analysis of the roles of a primary caregiver, duty bearer and the child as a rights holder will solve this issue. Let's consider Article 14 (1) (e) which state that:

“(1) Every person shall be entitled to his personal liberty and no person shall be deprived of his personal liberty except in the following cases and in accordance with procedure permitted by law –

(e) for the purpose of the education or welfare of a person who has not attained the age of eighteen years; or”

The primary duty bearer (government) is supposed to make education available and accessible to the rights holder (child).

The primary caregiver (parent) is expected to make sure that the rights holder who have not reached adulthood (18 years) access these rights and in this case the right to education. Primary caregivers shall not subject the right holder to any situation (religious, customary or economic) that would inhibit rights holder's access to these rights especially as the right holder in question is below 18 years.

So the primary caregiver cannot withdraw the rights holder (child) from school to marry or give her hand in marriage whilst she is below 18 and still in school. If the primary caregiver's religious practice behoves him and the child to walk naked or barefooted and this would inhibit the rights holder's (child) ability to meet basic requirements to access his right to education, the primary caregiver is guilty.

The laws care less about the consent of the minor rights holder to the marriage even if it's based on religious grounds. Bottom line is that the primary caregiver acts illegally if he or she puts the rights holder who is a minor in a situation based on religious beliefs which denies the rightsholder an opportunity to meet basic standards and requirements necessary to access the rights to food, education and shelter.

If a primary duty bearer claims his religious believes demand that the rightsholder fasts for 40 days and the latter is a minor, the primary caregiver denies the rights holder's right to food and nutrition and so the primary duty bearer must act to protect this rights holder who is deemed not to have reached an age capable of making such decisions.

I hear the "rasta'' boys make statements like " we would never cut our dreads even if it cost us our choice of school". This statement is akin to a girl of 14 years so involved in her defiler of 30 years that she vows not to leave him.

If society, child rights activists and feminists would find a case with it, defending or accommodating the utterances of the guys in dread who are minors and willing to forgo their education at the expense of their religious beliefs smacks of double standards.

Technically, the parents have violated the right to education of the "Rastafarian" children and never the school.