A/HRC/30/41 41. Those trends have a number of implications in relation to the human rights of indigenous women and girls. When looked at through a human rights lens, it is clear that many indigenous women and girls have difficulties with the law because of prior violations of their human rights. Issues associated with disregard for collective and individual indigenous rights — such as abuse of women, mental health problems and poverty — have been identified as causal factors in criminal behaviour among indigenous women. Furthermore, issues relating to indigenous women’s access to justice, as discussed below, must be considered within criminal justice. 42. Indigenous women may also be more vulnerable than non-indigenous women once they are in detention. There have been reports of a lack of women’s facilities to accommodate indigenous women, which means that they could be housed with men. That leaves them vulnerable to violence and unable to access gender-specific programmes and support. There have also been reports of racism and discrimination against indigenous women in prisons, as well as inadequate access to health services. Right to remedy 43. Indigenous women are routinely denied their right to remedy for abuses of their human rights. There is a historical and group dimension to the denial of women’s right to remedy. The failure of Governments to acknowledge and provide remedy for historical abuses of indigenous communities contributes to the ongoing vulnerability of indigenous women. 44. Currently, in numerous countries, indigenous women are marginalized in both national and indigenous justice systems. At the national level, judicial remedies and mechanisms are often not available to indigenous women owing to a range of cultural and linguistic factors. Indigenous justice systems, on the other hand, tend to be male dominated and do not always allow adequate space for women’s voices or participation. While customary or informal justice systems differ from one indigenous community to another, they may fail to offer genuine recourse to justice. For example, the Aboriginal Justice Inquiry of Manitoba, Canada, identified bias in favour of the male partner in indigenous domestic abuse situations and criticized Chiefs and Councils for being unwilling to address the plight of women suffering abuse at the hands of husbands or partners. 45. The challenges facing indigenous women in seeking justice can be complicated by the increase in private forms of remedy for violations perpetrated by business-related actors. As reported by MiningWatch Canada and Amnesty International at the third annual Forum on Business and Human Rights, held in 2014, private companies often offer women who have been victims of extreme violence, such as gang rape, access to corporate-led grievance mechanisms. A precondition for accessing such mechanisms is signing an agreement not to sue the company, so that judicial remedy is blocked. There have been reported cases of women receiving compensation that was shockingly disproportionate to the severity of the violations of their human rights. D. Multiple forms of violence 46. The issue of violence against women is indivisibly linked to the categories of rights discussed above. In fact, the endemic violations of collective, civil and political, and economic, social and cultural rights can be seen as constituting a form of structural violence 17 12 Native Women’s Association of Canada, “Aboriginal women and the legal justice system” (see footnote 13).