e.g. see LibreOffice 3.4.x – Help » swriter / guide.po globaldoc_howtos.xhp#par_id3149982.10.help.text <snip> To reorder the subdocuments in a master document, drag a subdocument to a new location in the Navigator list. You can also select a subdocument in the list, and click the <item type="menuitem">Move down</item> or <item type="menuitem">Move up</item> <emph/>icon. </snip> we see kosher help text followed by many spaces then a malformed <emph/> tag. I think this came about in the OOo days when some <emph>'ed items were globally replaced by <item>foo</item> items. Some cleaning up would help as I'm sure some translators will simply follow the template's lead.
<emph/> is not malformed, it is a self closing xml tag. You can omit it from your translation, because it has no effect. If I removed it from source, it would result in many fuzzies in all translations. The benefit-cost ratio would be low.