A/HRC/4/32 page 16 networks that other social groups have been able to build over the years. The situation of indigenous urban migrants is particularly dismal in the poorest poor countries. They crowd into the most miserable shantytowns and slums, unprotected by any systematic social welfare system. 66. Social policies that cover only the most vulnerable sectors of the population without considering the special characteristics of indigenous people have been unable to resolve the grave problems they face. The Special Rapporteur recommends that redoubled efforts should be made to apply affirmative action specifically geared to the needs of indigenous people, in the context of the actions recommended by the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues. Specific social policies for town-based indigenous populations are required if indigenous migration is not to become just another vehicle for the transfer of rural to urban poverty. J. Rights of indigenous women 67. Indigenous women continue to be discriminated against and marginalized in many parts of the world. The threefold discrimination they suffer (for being women, indigenous and poor) marginalize them even further - even compared with indigenous men - regarding economic and political opportunities for employment, social services, access to justice, and, more particularly, access to land and other productive resources. 68. The presence of women is steadily on the rise in the migratory cycles of agricultural workers and they continue to have a strong presence in domestic service and other ill-paid and poorly protected private jobs. They are also increasingly present in international migration and the informal economy and among the swelling ranks of urban poor who survive by begging. Even more alarming is the victimization of indigenous women and girls in drug trafficking, sex tourism and prostitution in vast regions of the world, for which reason the rates of HIV/AIDS and other venereal diseases are rapidly increasing among the indigenous population. Governments have not paid enough attention to this matter, and social and welfare policies have not, to date, been very effective in protecting this especially vulnerable segment of indigenous populations. 69. Infant mortality among the aborigines of Australia is more than double that among non-indigenous inhabitants, and the imprisonment rate among aborigine women is higher than that of any other community. In Ecuador indigenous women receive less medical care during childbirth than their non-indigenous counterparts (33 per cent as against 82 per cent). Infant mortality among the children of indigenous women is 10.5 per cent compared with 5.1 per cent for non-indigenous children. 70. In its 2003 report the Committee for the Elimination of Discrimination against Women expressed its concern at the continued discrimination faced by aboriginal women in Canada (A/58/38, para. 362). Despite some positive measures taken in that country, the report shows that indigenous Canadian women are overrepresented in low-quality, poorly paid jobs and that they constitute a high percentage of women who have not completed secondary education and of women in prison. The Committee also expressed its concern at the sexual violence against women practised by members of the army and by garimpeiros (miners) in indigenous territories in Brazil (ibid. para. 115).