Olga Núñez Abaunza

Olga Núñez Abaunza (22 March 1920 – 1971) was the first female Nicaraguan lawyer and first female notary. She was the first woman to serve in a Ministerial capacity and the first woman Deputy to serve in the National Assembly of Nicaragua. She was an ardent feminist, attending feminist conferences, forming a feminine wing of the liberal party, and running for office on a feminist platform.

Biography Olga Núñez Abaunza was born on 22 March 1920 in Masaya, Nicaragua to Arturo Núñez Arteaga and Filomena Abaunza Zúñiga. She went to primary school at the Colegio de Señoritas de Masaya, where she ran the school newspaper. To obtain a secondary education, she began at the all-boys' school, Instituto de Varones de Masaya and concluded her studies at Instituto Nacional Central Ramírez Goyena in Managua. The school was considered the best in the country at that time and she finished in 1938 with high marks.

Though attempts were made to dissuade her from studying law, Núñez enrolled at the Central University of Nicaragua. In 1945, she graduated as the first female attorney from Nicaragua, and first notary; Her thesis was “La posición de la mujer en la Constitución y el Derecho Penal de Nicaragua”. (The position of women in the constitution and criminal laws of Nicaragua). She went on to at the University of Pennsylvania and Johns Hopkins University with a focus on international human rights and completed a Master's at the American University of Washington College of Law.

In 1950, she was named vice-minister of education, the first woman to ever hold the post. In 1955, she had founded the Ala Femenina Liberal (Women's Liberal Wing) of Somozas' Nationalist Liberal Party and ran on a feminist platform.