A/76/202 organizations to investigate and carry out the groundwork. 81 In Latin America, indigenous women face obstacles to reporting sexual violence to the local authorities, police, public defenders and prosecutors owing to language barriers, a lack of economic resources, distance and judicial delays. Many end up abandoning the complaint and live in a cycle of violence that they cannot break. 82 (b) Children 52. Indigenous children living in urban areas face barriers, including racial discrimination, when seeking access to culturally safe programmes and services. They continue to be removed from their families and communities through State child welfare systems and are at greater risk of domestic servitude, forced labour and sexual exploitation. 53. Children and young people are particularly vulnerable to recruitment by criminal syndicates and street gangs. According to the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), indigenous children and adolescents have greater difficulty gaining access to local protection networks and face greater exposure to situations of violence, gang recruitment and domestic labour. 83 54. Urbanization puts children at high risk of systematic placement in alternative, non-indigenous care, which further erodes cultural continuity in terms of tradition, custom, language and heritage. The loss of cultural identity can be a causal factor in depression, addiction and suicide. For example, city-born Maori are often raised without grandparents and elders, who are the caretakers and teachers of Maori cultural knowledge. 84 55. Many indigenous peoples who migrate to the United States across international land borders are unaccompanied indigenous children who were separated from their parents at the border. 85 They often suffer from trauma from before and during the migration journey and then struggle in poor urban settings where they are vulnerable and at risk, lacking resources to maintain their cultural identity, knowledge, traditional skills or language. 86 (c) Persons with disabilities 56. Globally, the estimated number of indigenous persons with disabilities is approximately 54 million. 87 As stated by the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women (UN-Women), “higher rates of disability among indigenous peoples have been linked to greater exposure to extractive industries, environmental degradation”, 88 severe poverty, violence, unsafe living conditions, lack of access to health care 89 and the psychosocial impacts of intergenerational trauma caused by the legacy of colonization. 90 __________________ 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 21-10081 Ibid. Submission by the UNICEF Latin America and Caribbean Regional Office , UNICEF country offices in Bolivia (Plurinational State of), Brazil and Guyana and UNICEF New Zealand. Ibid. Ibid. See www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=23764&LangID=E and submission by the International Mayan League. Submission by the International Mayan League. See also www.un.org/esa/socdev/unpfii/ documents/factsheet_migration_final.pdf. Rivas Velarde, Indigenous Persons with Disabilities, p. 6. UN-Women fact sheet on indigenous women with disabilities (5 February 2013); and E/C.19/2013/6, para. 7. Rivas Velarde, Indigenous Persons with Disabilities, p. 6. Ibid.; see also UN-Women fact sheet on indigenous women with disabilities. 15/20