Leymah Gbowee is making more headlines and features every day. She is the former coordinator of the Women’s Peace Building Network, and current executive director of Women Peace and Security Network Africa (WIPSEN) of Ghana.

Gbowee began her struggle for peace in her native Liberia, plagued by civil war. By 2002, over 200,000 people were killed, and one third of the population was homeless. With women and children being raped every day, Gbowee organized women in the area for sit-ins and sex strikes, similar to actions in Kenya.

Eventually they met with Liberian President Doctor Charles Taylor and made him promise to attend a peace talk with warlords in Ghana. Gbowee and her team followed Taylor to Ghana, where they staged a sit-in directly outside the doors of the conference room. They refused to let the warlords out until the treaty was signed. When a security guard told Gbowee she was “obstructing justice,” Gbowee began to strip.

“It's a curse in Africa to see the naked body of your mother… especially if she does it deliberately,” says Etweda "Sugars" Cooper, the secretary general of the Liberian Women's Initiative. After security decided to leave Gbowee alone, they later advised her to block the windows as well, as some of the warlords were trying to escape through them.

Eventually, the treaty was signed, ending the Liberian civil war, and Taylor is now on trial for war crimes committed in Sierra Leone. Liberia elected Africa’s first female head of state, President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf.

Gbowee and her story are now the focus of the award-winning documentary “Pray the Devil Back to Hell.”