The Venda Sexy is an estate near
Santiago, Chile
Santiago (, ; ), also known as Santiago de Chile, is the capital and largest city of Chile as well as one of the largest cities in the Americas. It is the center of Chile's most densely populated region, the Santiago Metropolitan Region, whose ...
that was used as a torture center by the
DINA secret police during the military dictatorship of
Augusto Pinochet
Augusto José Ramón Pinochet Ugarte (, , , ; 25 November 1915 – 10 December 2006) was a Chilean general who ruled Chile from 1973 to 1990, first as the leader of the Military Junta of Chile from 1973 to 1981, being declared President of ...
.
Description of the estate
The house was divided in two floors and a basement and it was surrounded by a garden. The floor were in parquetry and the stairs in marble.
Initially the property of a communist family, in 1974 they fled political repression and the estate became owned by a corporation owned by Carabineros officer and DINA agent Miguel Eugenio Hernández Oyarzo, who initially used it as dormitory for DINA agents. On 1981, it was sold and the first would-be buyer, neighbours, who initially planned to lodge students and a
nursery, refused after learning how the estate was used; another buyer acquired the property
Under Pinochet
It was called ''Venda Sexy'' ("Sexy Blindfold") for the sexual abuse that the inmates suffered during the detention and the fact inmates wore blindfolds. Another name that was given to the estate was ''La Discothéque'' for the music that was played when the inmates were tortured.
According to the
Valech Report
The Valech Report (officially The National Commission on Political Imprisonment and Torture Report) is a record of abuses committed in Chile between 1973 and 1990 by agents of Augusto Pinochet's military regime. The report was published on November ...
, the tortures used there had a sexual character. Such tortures included
rapes
Rape is a type of sexual assault usually involving sexual intercourse or other forms of sexual penetration carried out against a person without their consent. The act may be carried out by physical force, coercion, Abusive power and control, ...
by wardens and nude photos;
Ingrid Olderock,
Carabineros
The was an armed carabiniers force of Spain under both the monarchy and the Second Spanish Republic, Second Republic. The formal mission of this paramilitary gendarmerie was to patrol the coasts and borders of the country, operating against ...
officer nicknamed the "women of the dogs", had a
German shepherd
The German Shepherd or Alsatian is a German breed of working dog of medium to large size. The breed was developed by Max von Stephanitz using various traditional German herding dogs from 1899.
It was originally bred as a herding dog, for ...
named Volodia (named from
Volodia Teitelboim Volodia Teitelboim.
Volodia Teitelboim Volosky (originally ''Valentín Teitelboim Volosky''; March 17, 1916 – January 31, 2008) was a Chilean communist politician, lawyer, and author.
Personal life
Born in Chillán to Jewish immigrants (Ukrainia ...
) trained to rape female inmates. Inmates had to stay naked.
The concentration camp was used for a different purpose from that of
Villa Grimaldi
Villa Grimaldi is considered the most important of DINA’s (Dirección de Inteligencia Nacional, the Chilean secret police during the Pinochet regime) many complexes that were used for the interrogation and torture of political prisoners during ...
.
In 1974 numerous members of the leftist guerrilla group
MIR
''Mir'' (russian: Мир, ; ) was a space station that operated in low Earth orbit from 1986 to 2001, operated by the Soviet Union and later by Russia. ''Mir'' was the first modular space station and was assembled in orbit from 1986 to&n ...
were interned in the camp; from 1974 to 1981, 80 inmates, one third of them female, were held in this facility; the highest activity was in 1974.
Memorial
On 2016, several former inmates in associations such as the
Colectivo de Mujeres Sobrevivientes Siempre Resistentes ("Collective of surviving women always resisting") and the
Sobrevivientes de Venda Sexy ("Survivors of Venda Sexy") asked the former facility to be made a national monument. However, it's owned by private parties who are banned from altering it, and these collectives asked the state buy it to make a memorial center.
Fiction
*
''Bestia'', a movie about the center
See also
*
Ingrid Olderock
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Venda Sexy
Rape
Rape in the 1970s
Zoophilia
Internment camps
Operation Condor
Political repression in Chile
Torture in Chile
Violence against women in Chile