102 Towards the Effective Protection of LGBTI Persons Deprived of Liberty are socially accepted. Even when homosexuality and/or trans identities are not criminalized, police officers may abuse their discretionary powers and arbitrarily arrest LGBT persons on the basis of ambiguous decency, debauchery, or vagrancy laws. Specific forms of discrimination, abuse, and mistreatment of LGBT persons by law enforcement officers include name-calling and other abusive language, beatings, forced anal or vaginal examinations, and sexual violence, including anal rape with a stick, as well as the threat of being raped. Cases of trans women being arbitrarily executed by law enforcement officials have also been reported. Other abusive practices include forcing arrestees to do sit-up exercises while naked and, for trans women, pulling off their garments or wigs or beatings in the breasts and cheekbones to burst implants and release toxins. There are also reports of arrests followed by forced medical testing for HIV and other STIs, targeting in particular sex workers and/or persons perceived to be LGBT. Lesbians are especially exposed to the risk of being forced to perform sex acts on police officers and to “corrective rapes”. As apprehension by the police does not always lead to formal arrest and detention, it is particularly challenging for monitoring bodies to have a proper understanding of law enforcement practices at this crucial moment. This is also why it is important for monitors to not only seek to obtain specific information about such practices at later points in time—once the person is in custody or has been released—but also to engage in regular exchanges with grassroots LGBTI organisations with direct knowledge of police practices during arrest and apprehension. Good practice Court ruling in Nepal leading to drastic decrease of police violence In Nepal79, people known as metis – or “third gender” – have historically been one of the groups most targeted, harassed, mistreated by law enforcement and other officials. Relegated to the See An activist’s guide to the Yogyakarta Principles, August, 2010, pp. 89-91. Available at: www. ypinaction.org/files/02/85/Activists_Guide_English_nov_14_2010.pdf <accessed 7 October 2013>. 79