Venda Sexy

Naming

The site operated as a DINA detention center from late 1974 to mid-1975, in parallel with Villa Grimaldi. It was staffed by a team distinct from that of Villa Grimaldi, and it operated only during office hours; conditions, including food, were reportedly somewhat better than at other detention sites.^[9]

The detention center was given two nicknames. It was called Venda Sexy ("Sexy Blindfold") because inmates were kept blindfolded at all times while being subjected to sexual abuse by guards and DINA agents — a name allegedly coined by the perpetrators themselves. It was also called La Discothèque because music was played continuously while inmates were tortured.^[9][1]

Detention and political sexual violence

Between November and December 1974, DINA agents carried out a large number of arrests targeting members of the leftist guerrilla organization Revolutionary Left Movement (MIR), who were then held at the site. From 1974 to 1981, approximately 80 inmates — roughly one third of them women — passed through the facility, with activity peaking in 1974. The majority of those detained have since been classified as disappeared.^[4]

According to the Valech Report:

"Those who were held at the Venda Sexy reported being subjected to interrogations and torture carried out in the basement of the building. In this facility, sexual torture was practiced with particular emphasis. Sexual abuse and rape of male and female detainees were commonplace, including the use of a trained dog."^[10]

Methods of torture included rape by guards, the taking of nude photographs, and the use of a German Shepherd named Volodia — named after Volodia Teitelboim — that had been trained to sexually assault female inmates. The dog was associated with Ingrid Olderock, a Carabineros de Chile major who became a DINA agent and was nicknamed "the woman of the dogs." Inmates were required to remain naked at all times.^[3][4]

Survivor and feminist activist Beatriz Bataszew, a member of the Colectivo de Mujeres Sobrevivientes Siempre Resistentes ("Collective of Surviving Women Always Resisting" and the Coordinadora Feminista 8M ("March 8 Feminist Coordinating Committee"), has devoted much of her post-dictatorship activism to publicizing the political sexual violence endured by women detained at the center. She has stated:

"Political sexual violence has remained in absolute impunity on the part of the Chilean state and the judicial system. This form of State repression and crime continues in the detention of women during demonstrations and protests in democratic times."

Disappeared persons

Among those who disappeared after being held at the Venda Sexy are:

• Ida Vera Almarza
• Isidro Pizarro Meniconi
• Luis Mahuida Esquivel
• Antonio Soto Cerna
• Luis González Mella
• Félix de la Jara Goyeneche
• Marta Neira Muñoz
• César Negrete Peña
• Mario Peña Solari
• Nilda Peña Solari
• Gerardo Silva Saldivar
• Renato Sepúlveda Gajardo
• María Joui Petersen
• Francisco Rozas Contador
• Jorge Eduardo Ortiz Moraga
• Jorge Herrera Cofré
• Ramón Labrador Urrutia
• Luis San Martín Vergara

In all of these cases, witnesses have confirmed seeing these individuals at this detention center for the last time.

Declaration as a Historic Monument

In 2016, survivors organized through associations including the Colectivo de Mujeres Sobrevivientes Siempre Resistentes and the Sobrevivientes de Venda Sexy ("Survivors of Venda Sexy") campaigned for the former facility to be recognized as a national monument. On 11 May 2016, the National Monuments Council declared it a Historic Monument.^[11] Despite this designation, which prohibits any alteration or modification of the property, the site remained in private hands. Survivor organizations continued to demand that the state purchase the property and place it at the disposal of memory organizations.^[4][12]

Controversy over sale

In August 2019, it became public that the site had been sold to a real estate investment company (Aluminios Centauro), despite the prohibition against modification or alteration under Chilean monuments law. The revelation provoked swift condemnation from Venda Sexy survivors, feminist organizations, and human rights groups. More than 140 organizations signed a public declaration, including the Colectivo de Mujeres Sobrevivientes Siempre Resistentes, the Colectiva Cueca Sola, Londres 38 Espacio de Memorias, and the Coordinadora Feminista 8M, among others. The declaration stated in part:

"What is happening today with Venda Sexy is a symptom of a lack of heritage policies defined by historical amnesia on the part of all civilian governments since the end of the dictatorship. We face a context of escalating criminalization and repression of social struggles, of impunity, of pacts of silence and historical denialism."^[13]

Supreme Court convictions (2023)

In August 2023, in the lead-up to the 50th anniversary of the coup, Chile's Supreme Court issued a unanimous ruling confirming the convictions of three former DINA agents — Raúl Eduardo Iturriaga Neumann, Manuel Rivas Díaz, and Hugo Hernández Valle — for the crimes of aggravated kidnapping and the application of torture with sexual violence against ten detainees (six women and four men) held at the Venda Sexy between September and December 1974. Each was sentenced to 15 years and one day of imprisonment. The Second Criminal Chamber of the Supreme Court rejected defense appeals and explicitly refused to apply the doctrine of partial prescription (media prescripción) to reduce the sentences, on the grounds that the offenses constituted crimes against humanity subject to international law's imprescriptibility norms. The ruling also applied a gender perspective in its analysis, recognizing the sexual abuses as a form of violence against women consistent with international human rights standards.^[14][15]

Expropriation under President Boric

The recovery of the property became a priority of the administration of President Gabriel Boric, who took office in March 2022. Boric tasked the Minister of National Assets, Javiera Toro, with leading the effort as part of a broader commitment to recover memory sites ahead of the 50th anniversary of the coup. An inter-institutional working group was convened in May 2022, drawing in the Ministries of Housing, Women and Gender Equity, and Cultures, Arts and Heritage, as well as the Council of National Monuments and survivor organizations.^[5]

On 1 September 2023, ten days before the anniversary, the expropriation decree was published in the Diario Oficial, formally transferring the property to state hands. The former owner, Aluminios Centauro, was compensated $402,974,880 Chilean pesos. The formal title transfer was completed on 24 July 2024. On 11 September 2024, President Boric visited the site and met with survivors, reaffirming his government's commitment to its operation as a memory site.^[5][16][17]

Concession to survivor organizations

On 9 September 2025, the Ministry of National Assets granted the Asociación de Memoria y Derechos Humanos Irán 3037 a 25-year administrative concession over the property, entrusting the survivor-led organization with its management as a dedicated memory site. The ceremony included the presentation of results from a rehabilitation project for the building's first floor, funded by the Undersecretary of Human Rights to address structural deterioration found at the time of expropriation. Alejandra Holzapfel, president of the association and herself a survivor, welcomed the concession while calling for permanent state funding for memory sites — a commitment Boric had pledged to pursue before the end of his mandate.^[18]