RECLAIM Sustainability!
CASE STUDY
REVALORO and the Network of Women Miners in Peru
Women Leaders in Peru's ASM Sector Build Their First Network and Elevate Their Political Voice
RECLAIM Sustainability!
CASE STUDY
REVALORO and the Network of Women Miners in Peru
Women Leaders in Peru's ASM Sector Build Their First Network and Elevate Their Political Voice
REGION
Latin America - Peru
CONSORTIUM LEAD
Solidaridad
PARTNERS
National Network of Women Miners (RNM-MAPE)
planetGOLD Peru (UNDP/GEF)
CINCIA
Pure Earth
Wyss Academy for Nature
REGION
Latin America - Peru
CONSORTIUM LEAD
Solidaridad
PARTNERS
National Network of Women Miners (RNM-MAPE)
planetGOLD Peru (UNDP/GEF)
CINCIA
Pure Earth
Wyss Academy for Nature
In Peru’s artisanal and small-scale gold mining (ASM) sector, women miners are converting awareness into influence through Solidaridad’s REVALORO initiative. The grassroots National Network of Women Miners (RNM-MAPE) is now shaping public policy, driving collective action, and inspiring new gender-equity standards in responsible gold value chains.
Across Peru’s gold-rich regions, women have long played essential yet undervalued roles in artisanal and small-scale mining. REVALORO, under RECLAIM Sustainability! set out to change that by amplifying women’s voices, strengthening leadership, and embedding gender equality into ASM governance. At the heart of this transformation stands the National Network of Women Miners of Peru (RNM-MAPE), an alliance that unites over 400 women across 25 organizations.
Women leaders are now engaging with technical working groups and high-level dialogues with the Ministry of Energy and Mines and other authorities. Their proposals informed the 2022 Gender Plan for ASM, the sector’s first formal policy tool for gender mainstreaming. Crucially, their specific demands have been reflected in at least three draft laws, marking a breakthrough in legislative impact.
Women leaders are now engaging with technical working groups and high-level dialogues with the Ministry of Energy and Mines and other authorities.
Women leaders are now engaging with technical working groups and high-level dialogues with the Ministry of Energy and Mines and other authorities.
Transformation is also unfolding regionally. In Madre de Dios, the regional Women’s Network — composed of nine associations — co-leads a technical support group with Solidaridad, CINCIA, Pure Earth, and the Wyss Academy for Nature. Together they are implementing work plans through 2027 focused on leadership, capacity-building, safe mining, market access, and policy dialogue.
In parallel, Solidaridad and RNM-MAPE have worked to transform social norms. Over 200 women completed leadership and safety training, and the first Occupational Health and Safety Manual for Pallaqueras was published. Awareness campaigns on gender equality and safe mining reached 249,000 people in social media, sparking national discussion of women’s roles in ASM.
A pallaquera is a female miner who works on piles of waste rocks from artisanal mines, manually seeking discarded ore containing tiny contents of gold.
women completed leadership and safety training
people reached by social media awareness campaigns on gender equality and safe mining
The work has even become a documentary, produced by Solidaridad and creative agency BÁLU. Entre Polvo y Sueños (Between Dust and Dreams) follows María Reyes, Julia Pomalique, and Vilma Contreras — three women whose stories reveal systemic barriers and the change they hope to realize. Premiering at the 14th Annual Workers Unite Film Festival in New York, the film invites viewers to take concrete action toward gender equity in mineral supply chains.
We realized we can organize. We can raise our voices. And we deserve to be part of the conversations we’ve been left out of for too long.
Julia Pomalique, ASM leader from Puno
(featured in Entre Polvo y Sueños)
RECLAIM Sustainability! Gold Peru shows that when women’s organizations gain legitimacy and build alliances, systemic change follows — even in highly constrained political environments.
While advocacy efforts have not yet resulted in concrete legislative reforms, they have shifted the policy debate by explicitly positioning women miners, particularly pallaqueras, within proposed ASM legal frameworks. Several draft bills discussed in official technical working groups now name women miners directly, with some proposing their recognition under specific legal categories with defined rights and obligations.
The initiative’s key insight: intersectional collaboration — across policy, organization, and communication — turns visibility into structural influence, offering a replicable model for equitable mineral value chains.
Generacciones, a new EU-co-financed project under RECLAIM Sustainability!, will scale leadership and entrepreneurship training for women and youth across ASM regions. Efforts continue to institutionalize and fund the Gender Plan for ASM to 2030, with monitoring led by state agencies and civil society.
Future priorities include replicating the technical support group model in other mining zones and expanding the visibility of Entre Polvo y Sueños to inspire regional policy dialogue. These actions will sustain women’s collective agency as a cornerstone of responsible and inclusive ASM.
LEARN MORE
- Solidaridad Network. (2022, June 21). Julia’s story
- Solidaridad Network. (n.d.). Women miners make the case for changes to Peru’s new National Policy for Artisanal and Small-scale Mining.
- Solidaridad Network. (2018, August 28). Female miners in Peru gain landmark recognition of key role in gold value chain.
- Solidaridad Network. (2025, August 14). ‘Entre Polvo y Sueños’: New Documentary on the Strength and Collective Power of Women Miners.
- Solidaridad Network. (2025, September 18). Strengthening the voice, safety and recognition of pallaqueras in Peru’s ASM sector.
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