‘You have a lot to answer for:’ Human rights, matriliny, and the mediation of family conflicts at the Department of Social Welfare in Ghana

Scholars have argued that the implementation of legal reforms in African settings has largely failed because of the persistence of norms and values that privilege collective interests over individual rights. With a focus on the work of the Department of Social Welfare (DSW) in a matrilineal Asante town in Ghana, this article reflects on the potential for state institutions to implement a human rights perspective through family dispute resolution processes. In this context, the key factors that influence the work of institutions such as the DSW, which has a human rights mandate, include the long history of family legal contests outside the lineage and the principle of economic separateness in the context of marriage. The effect of these developments is that the opportunity continues to exist for individuals, in this case women, to advocate for their rights as mothers even in a supposedly collective social setting. The evidence supports the position that “culture” is not always the impediment to human rights that it is often made out to be.