Vilma Núñez

Vilma Núñez de Escorcia (née Vilma Núñez Ruiz, 25 November 1938) is a Nicaraguan lawyer and human-rights activist. Born to a single mother, she developed an early concern for social justice. As an undergraduate studying law at National Autonomous University of Nicaragua in León, she met future senior government officials Carlos Tünnerman and Sergio Ramírez, and became one of the survivors of the 23 July 1959 student massacre by the Somoza National Guard. She joined the Sandinista National Liberation Front around 1975 and in 1979 was imprisoned and tortured by the Somoza regime. She was freed days before the FSLN insurrection succeeded on 19 July 1979. When they took power, she served as vice-president of the Supreme Court of Justice, then as director of the National Commission for the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights.

Núñez went on to found the non-governmental organization Nicaraguan Center for Human Rights (CENIDH) in 1990 when the FSLN lost power. In 1996, she unsuccessfully challenged Daniel Ortega to be the party's candidate for President; but in 1998 she broke with the party to represent Zoilamérica Ortega Murillo, Ortega's stepdaughter who accused him of sexually abusing her as a child. Núñez has since faced harassment and in 2008, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights issued precautionary measures to protect her. Following the April 2018 anti-government protests, CENIDH was one of a number of non-profits that had their legal status revoked and its office was raided by police, but Núñez insisted on continuing her human rights work. A new challenge came with the 2020 Law for the Regulation of Foreign Agents, which ordered all groups that receive funding from abroad to register as foreign agents; Núñez is challenging its constitutionality in court.