Mrs. Ngo Ba Thanh

Ba Thanh Ngo and Vân with protest posters

After completing her LL.M at Columbia in 1959,[11][12][Note 3] Vân returned to Europe and taught briefly at the International University of Comparative Law, headquartered in Luxembourg and Strasbourg,[9] while researching legal systems in Latin America.[6] Because her husband could not find a job, he returned to Saigon, while she continued with her studies and her family cared for her children in Paris.[9] Vân then resigned and moved to Spain,[6] completing a doctorate in corporate law at the University of Barcelona in 1962.[4][6] She was offered a directorship at the International University of Comparative Law and because of her fluency in English, French, and Spanish, a position at the United Nations Office of Legal Affairs, department of international law by Secretary-General of the United Nations Dag Hammarskjöld.[6]

Vân turned down both offers and in 1963 returned to Vietnam, despite the on-going war, hoping to use her education to help the country.[6] She was hired as the chief judicial advisor in the administration of Ngo Dinh Diem, president of South Vietnam. When Diem was assassinated at the end of the year,[13] she helped found the Comparative Law Institute at Saigon University and its journal The Asian Comparative Law Review.[9] She served as head of the institute and began to work in the peace movement.[13] Embracing the feminist movement and believing that international cooperation would lead to understanding and eliminate oppression,[14] Vân founded the International Women's Association of Saigon and became its president. The organization cultivated membership through ambassadors' wives in order to bring international women together.[15]

Vân's fluency in English and French led to her being invited to participate in diplomatic meetings between 1964 and 1965. At one meeting hosted by the British Embassy to discuss Operation Rolling Thunder, she was asked by experts including the ambassadors Gordon Etherington-Smith (UK) and Henry Cabot Lodge Jr. (USA), and the military experts Sir Robert Grainger Ker Thompson (UK) and General William Westmoreland (USA), if the bombing strategy would be effective. She advised them that it was likely to have the opposite effect, turning people toward communism.[15][16] Ignoring her advice and proceeding with the bombing raids forced Vân to become a relentless protester against the policies of the government of South Vietnam and American imperialists.[17][18] She was arrested in early 1965 along with her father, who led the Committee for Peace, and Trương Như Tảng, leader of the National Self-Determination Group.[17][19][20] Her father was deported to North Vietnam in March, and she and Trương were given suspended sentences in August.[20][21][Note 4] As a result of her arrest, both Vân and her husband, who was the director of the Saigon Fishery Service, lost their jobs.[19] After participating in a protest at Saigon University, she was arrested again in 1966 and spent two years in prison.[16] She was held for 25 months with no trial before being released.[19]

In 1969, Vân resigned the presidency of the International Women's Association of Saigon to found an organization for women peace activists.[14] After attending a seminar which presented testimony from women throughout South Vietnam about rapes and other violence perpetrated against women and children because of the war, Vân announced the formation of the Ủy Ban Phụ Nữ Đòi Quyền Sống (Vietnamese Women's Committee for the Right to Live). She urged women to work for reconciliation, peace, and the eradication of violence. Within five months, the name was changed to the Vietnamese Women's Movement for the Right to Live,[22] and became one of the founding member organizations of the Mặt Trận Nhân Dân Đấu Tranh vì Hoà Bình (Vietnamese People's Front Struggling for Peace),[23] for which Vân became a vice president.[24]

Vân, speaking as president of the Women's Right to Live, 1971

The Women's Right to Live quickly became an umbrella association uniting women from various other groups within the framework of the Lực Lượng Thứ Ba (Third Force Movement). The Third Force coalition was both anti-war and and anti-communist which worked towards a democratic post-war solution with improved socio-political rights and protections. The Women's Right to Live was the only women-led peace organization in the country and one of the most active groups involved the the Third Force,[22] uniting women across all social classes, age groups, and beliefs.[25] Vân was neither a communist nor a supporter of the Thiệu regime. She argued for an immediate withdrawal of American troops and a pledge from the United States to provide post-war economic support to rebuild the country. She pushed for a unified democratic government which followed a neutral system aligned neither with capitalism nor communism.[14]

To further the aims of the Women's Right to Live, Vân and the organization's membership built alliances with international women's groups, such as the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF) and Women Strike for Peace, writing letters to influential policy-makers and activists to increase awareness of the impacts of the war.[26] WILPF sent a delegation of members to meet with Vân and members of the the Women's Right to Live.[27] She personally wrote to the Foreign Relations Committee of the United States Senate, giving details of how the war was causing problems for women and children and urging Congress to stop funding the war and the South Vietnamese government.[28] The group organized programs to visit hospitals, orphanages, prisons and to assist war victims. They also held public rallies and publicized the social problems created by the war such as war orphans, mixed-race children, prostitution, victims of napalm bombings, and general deprivations and spread of disease. President Thiệu, interpreting their actions as dangerous to his regime, ordered troops to turn the women away and threaten to destroy their facilities.[29]

By 1971, Vân was followed continuously by the national police, who also photographed and followed the people she contacted.[24] She was arrested in July 1971 for lodging a complaint at the Supreme Court when it was announced that no opposition to Thiệu would be allowed to run in the upcoming election. Although she was released,[28] she was arrested again in September for a protest outside the National Assembly of the Republic of Vietnam and charged with disturbing the peace and illegal association.[30] It was also alleged that she had assaulted a judge, but witnesses verified that he merely stumbled.[28] Held for two years without trial, she spent much of her time in solitary confinement,[12] but continued to write letters to policy-makers.[31][32] The only time Vân was called to a military tribunal, in March 1972, she collapsed from an asthma attack and the trial was postponed.[33][34]

Struggles with asthma and lumbago, which led to partial paralysis of her right leg, resulted in Vân's move to a prison hospital in April 1973.[12] She staged a five-month hunger strike, losing over 40 pounds.[12][35] Radical feminist and US congresswoman Bella Abzug flew to Vietnam and brought her case to the attention of the US legislature and President Richard Nixon, who made an appeal for her release.[36][37][38] The US WILPF section and other branches of WILPF International contacted US House members and wrote letters to Nixon to secure Vân's release.[39][40] Newspapers reported that Thiệu agreed to her release in 1973 because of fear that the publicity would stop the flow of US funding.[30][36][37]

Although WILPF members had secured offers for a guest professorship at Columbia University and Bryn Mawr College following her release,[41] Vân was doubtful that she would be permitted to leave the country.[12] She decided that she needed to remain in Vietnam to work for peace. Despite the lack of recognition by the Thiệu government, the Third Force was recognized as an equal participant in the Paris Peace Accords negotiations.[35][42] Surveillance by the national police resumed and in October 1973 she was attacked by two unknown men, whom she thought were policemen.[36] Vân met frequently with foreign correspondents, giving over 110 interviews over the next 15 months.[43] She resumed her international correspondence with the aim of keeping alive ties between the Women's Right to Live and WILPF. Among the numerous programs she spearheaded was a successful campaign for WILPF members to monitor political prisoners through an adopt-an-inmate program.[44] She continued to press for a political solution to end the war because, despite the US troop withdrawal, neither of the combatants was willing to lose strength and initiate demobilization. North Vietnamese troops continued to have a presence in Saigon[36] and Thiệu continued to suppress dissidents and refused to abide by the terms of the peace agreement. This ultimately led to the Fall of Saigon.[45]

After the defeat of South Vietnam by the North Vietnamese in April 1975, plans for reunification moved swiftly.[46] The first elections for a united National Assembly of Vietnam since 1946 were held in April 1976 and, as one of the few non-communists, Vân was elected to the 492-member body.[9][47] She saw her role as a member of the opposition, providing checks and balances to the government. She refused to join the communist or socialist party.[9] In her first term, she served on the committee to draft the 1980 Constitution.[6] Vân was a member of the legislative Law Reform Committee during the 1981 to 1986 term and was chair of the Law Reform Committee from 1987 to 1991. She was also vice president of the Vietnam Lawyers Association.[6][8] In 1989 at the 24th WILPF Congress, she was elected as the executive representative for Southeast Asia.[9]

Vân was one of the architects of the 1992 Constitution of Vietnam, which expanded economic rights.[48][49] She facilitated legal reforms in the country and through her publications provided links for Vietnam and the West.[11] Her published works, such as the chapter "The 1992 Constitution and the Rule of Law" in Vietnam and the Rule of Law (1993) evaluated Vietnamese law and legal systems from a historical and cultural perspective, contrasting the various rights and the political structure with those of other nations.[50] In 1992, she was assigned as a candidate for a district in Ho Chi Minh City in which she was likely to have little support and lost her seat.[8][48] Within months, she joined the Fund for Assistance to Women's Innovation as a vice president. The organization was sponsored by the government and focused on developing projects to expand the social and scientific roles of women and work with legislators to draft policies to facilitate growth.[48] Vân was elected to her final legislative term in 1997, serving through 2002.[6][51]