With close to 100,000 Dominican women living across the European continent, 86% of the remittances that come from Europe are sent by women. According to sociologist Irma Nicasio, spokesperson for the International Committee for the Protection and Support of Migrating Women and Those Taken for Sexual Exploitation, about half these women are prostitutes. Nicasio, who did a study on Dominican emigrants in Spain, the United States, Switzerland and Italy, said that nearly 60,000 Dominican women live in Spain and work in household service. Moreover, she found another 50,000 women that do “sexual work” in Spain, Switzerland and Italy, as well as other countries. Nicasio said that research in Europe and among the 127 remittance companies in the DR revealed that 86% of the resources sent from Europe are sent by women, since she could only find 17,000 Dominican men that were working in Europe. In the case of Spain, the average remittance is 600 EUR per month. The report also says that prostitutes send more money than those employed in households. Nicasio revealed that most of the women working in the sex trade were tricked, with many of them held against their wills and held in roadside “clubs” and had their passports taken away. Many of these women were offered jobs as waitresses or dancers but found a very different reality when they arrived at their destination.