- 44 However, the facts found during the 2009 visit clearly demonstrate that vaginal searches on women are not carried out based upon a proper risk assessment but as a routine measure. Further, at both Thiva Prison and Korydallos Women’s Remand Prison, vaginal searches of inmates were performed without having obtained written permission and were in many cases carried out by prison officers acting as medical orderlies. Information from the authorities that a doctor from the State Hospital of Thiva will now visit Thiva Prison twice a week and be the sole person authorised to carry out vaginal searches is a step in the right direction, but it does not meet all the Committee’s concerns. The CPT calls upon the Greek authorities to end the practice of routine vaginal examinations of female prisoners at Thiva Prison and Korydallos Women’s Remand Prison and ensure: that such examinations are only carried out when absolutely necessary; that each examination is properly recorded in a special register; that they are performed by a medical practitioner, who is not the treating doctor of the person concerned; and that they are carried out under conditions which respect physical safety and human dignity. 93. The Committee also has grave misgivings about the consequences of choices offered to many women prisoners upon their admission to Thiva Prison, whereby those prisoners who refuse a vaginal examination are de facto punished by being placed in the segregation unit for a number of days during which time they have to take laxatives. To begin with, obliging women prisoners to take laxatives is a dangerous practice that should be ended forthwith. Moreover, prisoners should not be placed in a position of having to effectively choose a period of segregation as an alternative to a vaginal examination. This is all the more so given that the delegation was informed by staff at Korydallos Women’s Prison that in the event of a woman refusing a vaginal search an ultrasound examination could be performed; however, in practice this or other alternatives would appear never to have been proposed. The CPT recommends that the Greek authorities take due note of these remarks when considering alternatives to a vaginal search. Further, the CPT reiterates its recommendation that the practice of obliging women prisoners to take laxatives be immediately ended.