A/HRC/35/10 practices that cause women’s and children’s vulnerability to trafficking, and give rise to racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance”. The Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, the Committee on the Rights of the Child, the Human Rights Committee and the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women have, in their concluding observations, referred to the trafficking of minority or indigenous women, including for purposes such as sexual exploitation or forced labour, in Japan, Germany, Bosnia and Herzegovina and the Congo (see CERD/C/JPN/CO/7-9, para. 16; CRC/C/COG/CO/2-4, para. 72; and CCPR/C/BIH/CO/1, para. 16).26 37. Data on violence against specific groups of women and girls are often missing or inaccurate. The lack of data at the national level on the extent of violence against migrant women and girls as alarming.27 The identity of women or girls often remains unrecorded, while the lack of culturally appropriate and gender-sensitive assistance and services, and the lack of legal protection, including for survivors of violence, may contribute significantly to the underreporting of such violence. Women’s autonomy, and the participation and representation of women in public life E. 38. Intersectional discrimination renders affected women and girls invisible in decisionmaking processes in their families, communities and society at large. The representation of women of African descent, for instance, is low even in countries where women increasingly participate in the work of executive and legislative branches.28 39. Women affected by intersecting forms of discrimination and violence may face restriction on their rights to freedom of association, peaceful assembly and collective bargaining. Women working in informal sectors and economically marginalized areas, including migrant women workers, are often excluded from national labour laws. They are poorly represented in trade unions or in other forms of organizations. They are therefore unable to promote agency or to raise their collective voice to claim their rights.29 40. The Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance noted how legislative provisions that prohibit the wearing of religious symbols, such as the Islamic veil, are discriminatory towards certain specific groups of women and undermine their fundamental freedoms, including their right to participate in public life (A/HRC/15/53, para. 59). 41. Women and girls may face greater risk of targeted violence in the public sphere. Cases of sexual violence perpetrated against women, including from ethnic and religious groups, to control, punish them for their perceived “countercultural” behaviour, or relegate them to the private sphere, have been reported. For instance, in the Central Africa Republic, Christian women have been raped for trading with members of the Muslim community (S/2016/361, para. 13). 26 27 28 29 10 Official Records of the General Assembly, Fifty-ninth Session, Supplement No. 38 (A/59/38). See European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights, “Thematic focus: Gender-based violence”. Ana Irma Rivera Lassén, “Afrodescendant women: our gaze fixed on the intersections of race- and gender-based organizing”, Concept Document, Challenges and Opportunities of the Economic Empowerment of Afrodescendant Women, ECLAC, Brasilia, 13-16 July, 2010. “Cooperating out of isolation: the case of migrant domestic workers in Kuwait, Lebanon and Jordan”, working paper, ILO Regional Office for Arab States, 2015.