ASUNCIÓN, Paraguay — Maria Esther Roa was fuming.

A powerful lawmaker had, once again, escaped punishment for his misdeeds.

But standing outside of Congress in Paraguay’s capital, Asunción, in early August of last year, Ms. Roa hatched an unconventional plan to bring some measure of accountability to the powerful. It involved pots, pans, dozens of eggs and lots of toilet paper — and it would inspire a nationwide grass-roots crusade against corruption in this tiny South American nation.

As other Latin American countries took on corruption by powerful politicians and companies over the past few years, often in response to public outrage, Paraguay’s weak institutions and flawed justice system had left it lagging.



But Ms. Roa, a criminal lawyer, and a group of organizers, most of them women, decided to try to change that by turning public humiliation into a tool they call far more effective than criminal indictments.