Van Dunem was born in 1955 in Luanda, then the capital of the Portuguese Overseas Province of Angola. She went to Lisbon in the early 1970s in order to study law at the University of Lisbon. In April 1974, the Portuguese Estado Novo regime was overthrown by a left-wing military coup and in 1975 Angola become a newly independent communist state - the People's Republic of Angola. Her brother José Van Dunem was murdered in a purge occurred in Agostinho Neto's post-independence Angola that same year. Francisca did not return to Angola and pursued a family life and a professional career in Portugal.