The use of detention centers in the Dirty War, the period of state terrorism in Argentina between 1976 and 1983, caused immense fear for victims throughout the country. After being kidnapped and interrogated, the prisoners would be subjected to the harsh and overcrowded conditions of the various detention centers.[1] Once the kidnapped were forced into detention, they effectively disappeared, becoming los desaparecidos. While there was no standard for detention centers, all of them incorporated a torture room. Physical torture was combined with emotional torture, with prisoners humiliated and dehumanized by the hands of the leaders; prisoners also lost basic human rights, unable to talk, shower, eat, and sleep.[1]
The detention centers were notorious for mass murders to remove evidence of the torture that had transpired. At the end of the Dirty War and a change in government, prisoners were released on the street, blindfolded, with the torturers' identities kept a secret.[1]
