Putting a Stop to Gender Violence through Community Action: The Experience of a Network of Women Leaders in Peru

This policy brief describes the creation of the Women Leaders Network in Villa El Salvador, Lima, Peru, and how it serves as a successful model for transformation and structural change for gender equality. This network has been able to unify existing and rising women leaders around a common cause, addressing gender based violence (GBV), while maintaining an intersectional approach. Once unified, the women pushed the local government to create a permanent taskforce for preventing and responding to GBV in which the women leaders and representatives of the local government, judiciary, police, healthcare and others participate. The objective of this brief is to share the successes and lessons learned of the methodology used to inform and encourage the creation of women leaders networks in other contexts and harness grassroots partnerships to influence local responses to GBV and other pressing issues affecting women.