ABSTRACT
Latin America has the highest emigration rate in the world. People leave Latin America destined to all parts of the world in search of greater employment opportunities and higher wages. They tend to migrate to industrialized, wealthy, countries and regions. A 2009 study suggested that 90 percent of all sex workers in Spain were migrants, 80 percent of whom hailed from three countries: Colombia, the Dominican Republic and Ecuador. Economic crises in the Southern Cone countries, together with the post-9/11 atmosphere in the United States, have had profound effects on the migratory patterns from Latin America. Emigrants from Latin America have often preferred migration to southern European countries for obvious reasons involving language, culture, and heritage. Tourism is a significant form of revenue for the Mexican government, and generates about 20 billion dollars per year, but that number has been sliding against robust remittance payments from abroad.
