Victoria Analía Donda Pérez is an Argentine human rights activist and legislator.
Background
She is the first daughter of a "disappeared" person, born in captivity, to become a member of the Argentine National Congress. She was born in 1977, in the notorious clandestine detention center called ESMA in Buenos Aires while her mother, María Hilda Pérez de Donda, was "disappeared" for her leftist activity. Her father, José María Laureano Donda, was also held in captivity during the same time.
After her mother was killed, Victoria was handed over to another family, who raised her but never told her about her biological parents.
Education
University of Buenos Aires.
Career
She was the youngest woman to hold that office. Both remain disappeared and are presumed to have been killed during that period. She is one of approximately 500 children known to have been born to disappeared political prisoners during Argentina"s Dirty War (1976–1983), who were kidnapped and registered under false identities.
On May 24, 2004, when ESMA was converted by the government into a memorial center, Donda spoke at the ceremony: lieutenant was moving but at the same time, sad.
I thought: "This woman had been so courageous to get pregnant, to continue fighting for the same society I"m fighting for now, to withstand torture so I could be born and I"m such a chicken who can"t even go and give a small blood sample". One week later, deoxyribonucleic acid analysis revealed Donda"s true identity.
She was the first "sister" found by H.I.J.O.S. and the 78th granddaughter found by the Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo. Some weeks later, her kidnapper was detained.
He is currently on trial, along with Juan Antonio Azic and other prosecuted, for 62 crimes against humanity.
Before Victoria Donda knew her identity, she had already been interested in human rights and poverty issues, working for a soup kitchen called "Azucena Villaflor", name of a disappeared human rights activist and first president of Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo. She was part of a mob that stormed into the Argentine Congress and vandalized it during the December 2001 riots. In 2006 Victoria Donda was elected a councilmember in the municipality of Avellaneda, Buenos Aires Province.
Membership
Donda became later member of the Movimiento Libres del Sur. In 2007 she was elected, as a member of the Front for Victory front on the Popular and Social Encounter list, to Argentina"s Chamber of Deputies (Argentina"s lower house of Congress), with her term beginning in December 2007.
