READ MORE: Up to 34 female inmates undergo improper internal examinations by doctors in prison
Susan said the practice stretched back far further than the early 2000s, detailing four searches she endured in the mid-80s.
On each occasion she was searched once while on remand at Auckland Women's Prison, and again when she served her sentence at Arohata Prison.
"There were people using drugs in prison so they were conducting internal searches," she said.
Susan was initially confused, thinking it was going to be a strip search. She recounted the chilling response from the nurse.
"She said: 'No, this is going to be an internal search. Spread your legs, I'm going to put my hand inside you'.
"It's horrible because you don't have any rights or you feel like you don't have any rights."
Susan said anyone who refused to undergo the search was threatened with being sent to a "filthy, dark room" in solitary.
She felt "really degraded".
"Just because you're in prison doesn't mean that you're a piece of s*** and can be treated that way.
"When you go into prison and you're subjected to things like that, it just makes you feel less human than you already f***ing felt."
Susan said she was a survivor of multiple rapes, and that the search gave her a similar feeling of helplessness.
"You may not sit there or lay back and think about the times you were raped, but it's that feeling you have of someone kind of invading your body when you don't want them to. That horrible feeling you have in the pit of your gut. Feeling like someone is just absolutely defiling you in a way."
Susan is not the only woman forced to relive horrors.
One woman, who provided an anonymous statement to the Herald through lawyer Emma Priest, said being internally searched was "psychologically damaging to every aspect of my being".
She had been gang raped when she was younger, she said, and the search brought back traumatic memories, causing her to go into a "trance".
She was made to stay in a "dehumanising" room with faeces on the walls until she underwent the search, she said. She considered smashing her head against the concrete wall to get the guards to let her out.
Another woman who provided a statement through Priest also described being put in solitary confinement for three days, closely watched whenever she showered or defecated.
She initially refused the search, saying it was against her "basic human rights", but eventually gave in so she could return to her usual cell.
"No one has the right to look and feel and dig inside me," she said.
"I was tense and in shock and uncomfortable throughout the whole experience, and so many painful memories I had suppressed for so long flooded back to me, and I was reliving a nightmare.
"I walked out of the doctor's office with my head down feeling violated, similar to being
sexually abused."
Priest and Sue Gray, barristers at Blackstone Chambers in Auckland, are acting for some of the women.
They have been instructed to give advice on civil proceedings for breaches of the woman's rights under the Bill of Rights Act 1990, which prohibits torture or cruel and degrading treatment.
Corrections national commissioner Rachel Leota apologised to any women who went through the searches, saying they were not permitted by the Corrections Act.
Anyone concerned that they were improperly searched can call Corrections on 0800 604 304.
