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.

[1] His example of political engagement was influential for Vilma, whose first acts of resistance against the Liberal Somoza dictatorship came in the form of support for Conservatives, though she ultimately concluded there was little difference between their ideologies and neither sufficiently addressed social injustice.

[7] After graduating, Núñez began working as a litigator, primarily a criminal defense lawyer,[2] and took pro bono cases defending political prisoners held by the Somoza government.

[1] During her five months in prison, Núñez was tortured, including with electric shocks, but did not give up any of what was by that point extensive knowledge of the FSLN networks,[3] for example, Commander Dora María Téllez's operation that successfully captured the city of Léon.

[9]: 132 In 1990, when Violeta Barrios de Chamorro defeated FSLN incumbent Daniel Ortega and assumed the Nicaraguan presidency, Núñez was in Geneva, Switzerland to give a speech.

[1] With an assistant, Núñez began discussing the possible creation of a body to monitor the new government, and another activist at the conference encouraged her to start a human rights foundation, donating $2500 to seed the project.

[9]: 82 CENIDH was granted legal status in September of that year and began its work by focusing on capacity-building with training programs teaching Nicaraguans that access to education and health care were human rights.

[11] Later it also started investigating allegations of human rights violations, problems Núñez recalled as developing after conservative Constitutionalist Liberal Party (PLC) President Arnoldo Alemán took office in 1997 (Nicaragua's constitution prevented Chamorro from seeking a second term).

[13] Zoilamérica reported the allegations to CENIDH and the case became a crossroads for Núñez, bringing into direct conflict her political role with the FSLN and her commitment to advocacy for women and human rights.

[14] That year and renewed annually since, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) has issued precautionary measures to protect Núñez and her family, although the FSLN government has not complied with these.

[15] In 2017, Murillo (by then Nicaragua's Vice-President as well as First Lady) wrote a letter, signed by nine FSLN officials,[15] to the US embassy in protest after Ambassador Lauren Dogu presented Núñez with an award on International Women's Day.

[1] On 12 December 2018, at the request of the FSLN Interior Minister, the FSLN-controlled National Assembly voted to revoke the legal status of CENIDH, accusing the group of using funds to "destabilize the country".

[16] Diverse sectors of Nicaraguan society joined pjotests against the repression, including Núñez who called for President Ortega to step down,[18] while the FSLN government insisted the mass resistance was a foreign-orchestrated coup attempt.

[16] While it was now more difficult, Núñez persisted in her human rights advocacy with CENIDH for the next two years until she and other organizations encountered a new hurdle in the form of the Law for the Regulation of Foreign Agents, passed by the National Assembly on 15 October 2020.

Núñez is contesting the constitutionality of this new requirement, which would subject implicated organizations to possible intervention in their property and assets, as well as threaten their legal status if the government judges that they are intervening in internal politics.

[19] The same year, Núñez won the Stieg Larsson prize for "her long struggle for women's rights and against the unjust anti-abortion laws of Nicaragua," an honor accompanied by a 200,000 Swedish crowns (about 30,000 USD).