The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the ACLU of Michigan reports the Michigan Department of Corrections has decided to no longer routinely subject women to body cavity searches at the Women’s Huron Valley Correctional facility. The facility had been forcing women to spread their vaginas for searches after shifts in prison jobs, after receiving medical care and after being visited by family, religious workers, lawyers or any other person who might want to see them in prison.

A consortium of civil liberties, religious and health organizations, and experts including the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) are challenging a strip-search procedure prisoners in Michigan’s Women’s Huron Valley Correctional Facility (WHV) are forced to submit to that is nothing less than sexual sadism by the state. In the prison that operates under the umbrella of the Michigan Department of Corrections, women are forced to remove their clothing and spread the lips of their vaginas so that a guard can peer inside. Female prisoners are forced to do this after they meet with family members, religious workers, their lawyers, or anyone else who may visit them in prison.