Venda Sexy

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Venda Sexy
Prison camp used during the Military dictatorship of Chile
View of the former Venda Sexy
Venda Sexy is located in Chile Venda Sexy Location of Venda Sexy in contemporary Chile
Coordinates	33°26′56″S 70°40′9″W
Other names	Venda Sexy or Discothèque (3037 Iran Street)
Known for	Internment of Pinochet's dissidents during his military dictatorship
Location	Macul, Santiago, Chile
Operated by	DINA (when the estate acted as a prison)
Original use	Private residence
Operational	1974–1975
Inmates	Pinochet's dissidents; members of the MIR
Killed	23
Website	iran3037.cl

Venda Sexy, also known as La Discothèque, was a clandestine detention and torture center operated by the DINA secret police during the military dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet. Located at 3037 Iran Street in the Macul district of Santiago, Chile, it functioned from late 1974 to mid-1975 as one of the principal clandestine detention sites in the capital. The site became notorious for the systematic use of sexual violence against political prisoners, particularly women.

Its name, Venda Sexy ("Sexy Blindfold"), referred to the practice of keeping inmates blindfolded at all times while subjecting them to sexual abuse — a term allegedly coined by the perpetrators. It was also called La Discothèque because music was played at high volume to mask the sounds of torture. Approximately 80 people were held at the site between 1974 and 1981, roughly one third of them women; most of those detained were members of the Revolutionary Left Movement (MIR), and the majority of those who disappeared have never been accounted for.

Declared a Historic Monument in 2016, the property remained in private hands for years and was sold to a real estate company in 2019, prompting an outcry from survivor organizations. Under President Gabriel Boric, the Chilean state expropriated the site in 2023 as part of the commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the coup. Also in 2023, Chile's Supreme Court confirmed the convictions of three former DINA agents for crimes of aggravated kidnapping and torture with sexual violence committed at the site. The formal title transfer to the state was completed in July 2024, and in September 2025 the government granted the Asociación de Memoria y Derechos Humanos Irán 3037 — an organization led by survivors — a 25-year concession to administer the property as a dedicated memory site.

Background

On September 11, 1973, a military junta staged a violent coup against Chile's democratically elected government, with the support of the Nixon administration. Socialist President Salvador Allende died under disputed circumstances during the assault on the presidential palace. During the first years of the junta's 17-year rule, it ruthlessly persecuted perceived opponents — trade unionists and members of liberal, socialist, and communist organizations. Torture was a daily occurrence. To this end, the junta established more than 1,200 secret prisons and torture sites across the country, utilizing military and police premises as well as seized and expropriated private property.

The head of the DINA secret police was Manuel Contreras, who had been trained at a military intelligence unit at Fort Benning, Georgia, in the United States. Contreras maintained relationships with the CIA and received payments from it. Operating from an office in downtown Santiago, he regularly visited the various detention and concentration camps under DINA's control, among them Villa Grimaldi (Terranova Barracks), 38 London Street (Yucatan Barracks), 1367 José Domingo Cañas Street (Ollagüe Barracks), and Venda Sexy at 3037 Iran Street, along with others. In Santiago alone, there were more than 220 secret prisons and torture centers. Contreras was later convicted of crimes against humanity; at the time of his death, he was serving 59 unappealable sentences totaling 529 years in prison.

Description of the estate

The house had two floors and a basement and was surrounded by a garden. The floors were in parquetry and the staircase in marble. The basement served as the primary site of interrogation and torture.

Initially the property of a communist family, the owners fled political repression in 1974. The estate subsequently became the property of a corporation owned by Carabineros de Chile officer and DINA agent Miguel Eugenio Hernández Oyarzo, who initially used it as a dormitory for DINA agents. In 1981, it was sold; the first prospective buyer, a neighbor who had initially planned to house students and operate a nursery, refused the purchase after learning how the estate had been used. Another buyer then acquired the property.

Operation as a torture center

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.

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.

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.

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."

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.

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.

Memorial and preservation

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. 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.

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."

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.

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.

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.

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.

In fiction

• Bestia (2021) — an Academy Award-nominated animated short film centered on Ingrid Olderock and the abuses carried out at the Venda Sexy.

See also

• Human rights violations in Pinochet's Chile
• Cuartel Simón Bolívar
• Colonia Dignidad

External links

• Official site of Irán 3037
• Memoria Viva