In Peru, sexual and reproductive rights are shaped by territorial inequality, structural violence, and legislative setbacks. At the same time, they are sustained by community-based responses, resilient leadership, grassroots strategies grounded in local realities, and a collective memory that keeps past struggles alive and informs ongoing resistance. In a context marked by weakened institutions and the rise of conservative rhetoric, those working to advance sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) continue to claim space, generate evidence, and build networks of care and resistance.

One of those voices is Maricielo Titinac Arévalo Pinedo, president of the Empoderamiento de la Niña y Mujer Amazónica (ENMA), an organization that promotes Indigenous women’s leadership in health and rights. Maricielo points out that “the high rates of adolescent pregnancy, often linked to gender-based violence, reflect a structural issue that demands a comprehensive response,” particularly in the Amazon, where geographic, cultural, and linguistic barriers combine with a lack of services. ENMA’s approach includes training community health promoters and incorporating ancestral knowledge to build trust and expand access to care.

From her background in education, Sheridan Medina, a feminist educator and gender consultant, highlights another critical issue: comprehensive sexuality education (CSE). “The absence of effective CSE in the school system contributes to misinformation and negatively impacts the sexual and reproductive health of Peruvian students,” she explains. According to her, the resistance to implementing equality policies in classrooms stems from growing pressure by conservative sectors that seek to censor and criminalize any gender-related approach, undermining the development of critical citizenship and access to rights from an early age.

In the same vein, Rosa Maria Tuesta Arroyo, an Afro-feminist social psychologist and project manager at Psicología Itinerante, which works to ensure access to dignified psychological care for populations in situations of heightened vulnerability, warns of what she describes as a “silent dismantling of hard-earned progress.” While legal frameworks exist to protect certain rights, such as therapeutic abortion, their implementation is often blocked. Rosa Maria stresses the importance of making the broader impact of SRHR visible in people’s daily lives: “This issue affects your income, harms your career development, and negatively impacts your mental health.” In her work with diverse youth and Afro-descendant communities, she advocates for intersectional responses that connect health, economics, education, and justice.

Robert Junior Juárez López, coordinator at the Network of Adolescents and Young People Living with HIV in Hispanic Latin America and the Caribbean, puts it bluntly: “It’s not just the [HIV] virus that kills, it’s the fear of being excluded, the forced silence, and the negligence of a system that turns its back on us.” Speaking from the perspective of young people living with HIV, Robert calls for the dismantling of linguistic, geographic, and symbolic barriers. He insists that SRHR information must be made available “in the language that beats in our chest,” whether Quechua, Aymara, or Shipibo or other indigenous languages of Peru. Without it, he says, rights remain just words on paper.

Despite the seriousness of the challenges, from the criminalization of rights to increased restrictions on civil society, grassroots SRHR groups in Peru refuse to let go of the agenda. They continue, through collaboration, and collective memory and action. And they do so because, as Rosa Maria affirms, they imagine “a future in which family planning is guaranteed as a right, not a privilege; a future where States – rather than rolling back – strengthen public policies grounded in rights, gender, and interculturality.”