Christina Cardenas was subject to a strip search by prison officials and another strip search by a male doctor who sexually violated her, a lawsuit said.

The wife of a California inmate will receive $5.6 million after being sexually violated during a strip search when she tried to visit her husband in prison, her attorneys said Monday.

After traveling four hours to see her husband at a correctional facility in Tehachapi, California, on Sept. 6, 2019, Christina Cardenas was subject to a strip search by prison officials, drug and pregnancy tests, X-ray and CT scans at a hospital, and another strip search by a male doctor who sexually violated her, a lawsuit said.

“My motivation in pursuing this lawsuit was to ensure that others do not have to endure the same egregious offenses that I experienced,” Cardenas said.

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    She was told she had to pay for the hospital’s services and later received invoices for a combined total of more than $5,000. Despite no contraband being found in any of her belongings or her body, Cardenas was denied her visit with her husband.

    One of the prison officials asked her, “Why do you visit, Christina? You don’t have to visit. It’s a choice, and this is part of visiting,” according to Cardenas.

    Holy shit. You don’t have to visit your family in prison and if you do this is what we’ll do to you. Chilling.

    A lawsuit filed on behalf of 21 women incarcerated at the California Institution for Women in San Bernardino County includes allegations spanning from 2014 to 2020 of forcible rape, oral copulation, groping and threats of violence and punishment by officers, CBS Los Angeles reported.

    Earlier this year the federal Bureau of Prisons announced it will close a women’s prison in Northern California known as the “rape club” after an Associated Press investigation exposed rampant sexual abuse by correctional officers.

    We have such a barbaric society. We deserve all the terrible shit that happens to us for not stoping things like this. If we actually strove to protect the people who need it, we’d have a more harmonious population. We’re assholes.