JEAN-JACQUES GAUTIER NPM SYMPOSIUM 2015 This means that they are treated in a discriminatory manner by their fellow prisoners who may, for example, refuse to share common areas with them (for example, during meals), use insulting language, and generally humiliate and abuse them in many different ways. The violence against LGBT persons may take more severe forms. It may for instance involve the violation of their physical and sexual integrity (through sexual assault or rape, for example). This underscores the importance for NPMs to be vigilant and even proactive on these issues. Is the separation of LGBT detainees from other prisoners the solution? To prevent abuse, the management of places of deprivation of liberty must act to ensure the protection of groups in situations of vulnerability, including LGBT detainees. Various measures, including the separation of LGBT detainees from the rest of the prison population, were discussed as ways of ensuring their protection. Although no solution emerged as ideal, various practices were outlined and discussed, starting with solitary confinement (which entails placing a person in a single cell for 22 hours or more a day). This measure was denounced by participants as a violation of several fundamental rights (in particular by depriving the detainee concerned of almost all social contact), and as a measure that, if prolonged, may be a form of torture. In practice, however, such measures are adopted in some institutions when authorities, faced with isolated cases of threats against LGBT persons, find no other means to ensure their protection. Symposium participants also discussed another measure sometimes applied to protect LGBT detainees, involving their placement in a special wing reserved for people considered vulnerable. This measure targets various types of detainees, ranging from those with physical or mental disabilities to sexual offenders. Because of the diversity of situations of vulnerability and the stigma that such a measure may provoke, it was agreed that it should be used with caution and only implemented with the consent of the person concerned. It was agreed that the placement of an individual in such a special wing should not also be accompanied by a reduction in the level of their conditions of detention. In many cases, however, the special quarters allocated to vulnerable people effectively disadvantage those placed there because they have reduced access 14