E/CN.4/2000/82 page 14 country statistics are regrettably scarce and take virtually no account of those without the necessary documentation. An estimated 30 million people come into the latter category, and women account for an increasing number of them. 65. The United Nations is concerned at the difficult situation of women migrant workers, as many of them have been the victims of gender-based violence. Migrant workers’ lack of education, training and knowledge means they are easily deceived. The Fourth World Conference on Women, held in Beijing in September 1995, analysed the situation of migrant women and called on States to recognize the vulnerability of those women to violence and other forms of abuse. Particular attention was devoted to migrant women whose legal status in the host country depended on employers. The Platform for Action (chapter IV, section D) that came out of the Conference urged Governments to establish linguistically and culturally accessible services for migrant women and girls, including women migrant workers, who were victims of gender-based violence. 66. Although it is a research topic of growing interest, little attention has been paid to gender distribution in the various categories of migrants and its consequences for the families and communities in their places of origin. C. Situation of migrant children 67. According to data from the ILO Statistics Office,10 96 per cent of children who work and sleep in the streets are migrants. They live in dire poverty and destitution, with no fixed place of work and no parents to take care of them or look after them. Many of them have stopped going to school. Forty-six per cent of street children are girls, aged between 8 and 14. According to the same sources, the average age of girls is lower than that of boys. 68. In The State of the World’s Children 1995, UNICEF stresses that it is children who must suffer the consequences of the Third World’s debt. The same report points out that the worst-hit areas are the education and development of children. 69. The main factor behind the migration of child labour is poverty and family destitution. Other contributing factors are the break-up of the family as a result of poverty, the lack of a working father or mother and the death of the father or mother or the invalidity of both. In a number of countries, child workers come from poor migrant families and, in some of them, cultural values support early entry into the labour market. Because of their inexperience and age, children are taken on for badly paid and menial jobs, jobs where they are particularly vulnerable to exploitation in the workplace (in terms of social and health care), manual jobs (breaking stones, weaving carpets), and work in factories. The growing numbers of children attracted by the lure of the tourist industry are vulnerable to sexual exploitation. D. Vulnerability 70. There are different perspectives on the vulnerability of migrants. Those perspectives vary according to whether the States concerned are countries of origin, transit or destination for migrants. Consequently, the differences between those perspectives becomes more pronounced with respect to problems stemming from the integration of migrants into the host society; social,