A/76/202 It is “characterized by poor quality housing, lack of secure tenure, and lack of access to water, sanitation, drainage, and flood-control facilities, as well as by ambiguously defined legal status … With limited Government service provision, residents often access basic services through self-produced connections or unregulated intermediary service providers, to whom they typically pay higher fees for lower quality services”. 37 26. Urbanization often involves extreme financial strain on indigenous peoples owing to the prohibitive cost of owning or renting and to the limited availability of social housing. 38 In some cases, the expansion of urban borders has caused an increase in the price of land, and indigenous communities in or near cities have come to individualize and sell their communal lands, generating displacement of families and the transformation of their communal life. 39 The degree of home ownership among indigenous peoples is significantly lower in cities than in rural areas. During an official country visit to Australia in 2017, the then mandate holder observed urban housing areas in person and noted that the high rates of homelessness, overcrowding and poor housing had a high impact on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health indicators and fuelled the disproportionately high rates of children entering the child protection and youth detention systems. 40 27. Widespread discrimination against indigenous peoples in urban areas is a major and systematic barrier to adequate housing. 41 There are documented practices of discrimination in housing and in relation to forced evictions of urban indigenous peoples. For example, “in the United States, according to a recent study conducted in New Mexico, Minnesota and Montana, Native Americans were subjected to adverse treatment 28 per cent of the time when they tried to rent a home in competition with a similarly qualified, non-indigenous white individual”. 42 The Special Rapporteur on adequate housing has reported that States and local authorities often deny housing and maintain and engage in discriminatory laws and practices. 43 28. Indigenous women living in cities have one of the most precarious levels of housing security and land tenure, as those systems can have a discriminatory impact on women. Cultural traditions often compel them to depend on men for land and housing security, notably as property rights vested in men deny wo men legal protection. Moreover, individual land titling systems are difficult for indigenous women from a low socioeconomic background to gain access to. 44 29. Furthermore, the lack of adequate housing serves as a nexus of continuing violence against indigenous women and children. When indigenous women leave an abusive partner, they often leave their community, which increases their vulnerability to violence. In such situations, the housing available to them is inadequate, while economic marginalization and criminalization increase dramatically. Moreover, indigenous women and children migrating to urban areas are at greater risk of falling victim to trafficking. A lack of adequate housing exacerbates the likelihood of victimization. 45 __________________ 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 10/20 A/HRC/25/54/Add.1, para. 17. UN-Habitat, Housing Indigenous Peoples Living in Cities, p. 22. Joint submission by Jóvenes Indígenas y Afrobolivianos de Santa Cruz, Nación Indígena Originario Qhara Qhara and Mancomunidad de Comunidades Indígenas de los Ríos Beni, Tuichi y Quiquibey. A/HRC/36/46/Add.2. UN-Habitat, Housing Indigenous Peoples Living in Cities. A/74/183, para. 20. Ibid., para. 18. UN-Habitat, Securing Land Rights for Indigenous Peoples in Cities. Ibid. 21-10081