Venda Sexy

Former torture center in Santiago, Chile

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Venda Sexy

Prison camp used during the Military dictatorship of Chile

View of the former Venda Sexy

Location of Venda Sexy in contemporary Chile

Coordinates| 33°26′56″S 70°40′9″W﻿ / ﻿33.44889°S 70.66917°W﻿ / -33.44889; -70.66917
Known for| Internment of Pinochet's dissidents during his military dictatorship
Location| Santiago
Operated by| DINA (when the estate acted as a prison)
Operational| 1973-1975
Inmates| Pinochet's dissidents
Killed| 18 claimed [citation needed]

The Venda Sexy is an estate near Santiago, Chile that was used as a torture center by the DINA secret police during the military dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet.[1][2]

## Description of the estate

[edit]

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.[3]

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. In 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.[3]

## Under Pinochet

[edit]

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.[4]

According to the Valech Report, the tortures used there had a sexual character. Such tortures included rapes by wardens and nude photos; Ingrid Olderock, Carabineros officer nicknamed the "women of the dogs", had a German shepherd named Volodia (named from Volodia Teitelboim) trained to rape female inmates. Inmates had to stay naked.[2][3][5]

The concentration camp was used for a different purpose from that of Villa Grimaldi.[citation needed]

In 1974, numerous members of the leftist guerrilla group MIR 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.[3]

## Memorial

[edit]

In 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.[3][6][7]

## Fiction

[edit]

* Bestia, an Academy Award-nominated animated short film centered on Olderock.

## See also

[edit]

* Ingrid Olderock

## References

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1. ^ Porteous, Clinton (13 May 2004). "Chile's Pinochet victims testify". BBC. Retrieved 21 March 2018.
2. ^ a b Cádiz, Pablo (17 November 2020). "Fallo histórico contra 'Venda Sexy', el centro de torturas a mujeres de la dictadura de Pinochet". El País (in Spanish). Retrieved 13 August 2022.
3. ^ a b c d e "La Venda Sexy, el centro de tortura de Pinochet contra la mujer que se vende al mercado inmobiliario". www.publico.es. 11 September 2019. Retrieved 13 August 2022.
4. ^ Informe de la Comisión Nacional de Verdad y Reconciliación (in Spanish). Santiago de Chile: Reedición de la Corporación Nacional de Reparación y Reconciliación. 1996. p. 468.
5. ^ Informe de la Comisión Nacional de Comisión Prisión Política y Tortura (in Spanish). Santiago de Chile: Ministerio de Interior. 2005. p. 443.
6. ^ "Chile. Mañana, miércoles 11, el centro de torturas y exterminio Ex Venda Sexy será declarado Monumento Histórico". Kaos en la red (in Spanish). 11 May 2016. Retrieved 13 August 2022.
7. ^ Vargas, Vanessa (13 December 2016). "Exigen que el Estado compre "Venda sexy", el lugar donde reinó la violencia político sexual de la dictadura". El Ciudadano (in Spanish). Retrieved 13 August 2022.