Biography

Marie-Louise Janssen got her master degree in Cultural Anthropology at the University of Amsterdam in 1991.

After finishing her study she started working in Nicaragua as a coordinator of women projects. There she became interested in male street sexworkers and started working with them on health issues and empowerment activities. In 1992 she returned to the Netherlands where she continued working with Latin American sex workers. In 1993 she founded together with a Colombian colleague Foundation Esperanza, a Colombian-Dutch NGO dedicated to the prevention and combating of human trafficking in Latin American women, as well as organizing shelter and legal support to victims of human trafficking for the European sex industry.

In 2007 she  received her PhD with the title: Sex Workers on the Move. Latin American Women in the European Sex Industry. The research is based on ethnographic fieldwork and 30 life stories of Latin American sex workers. By applying the methodology of oral history, she seeks to provide insight into the way these immigrants are working and surviving in the margins of Dutch society within the specific context of the Dutch sex industry, as well as in their home countries, and the personal interpretations they give to their identities as women, immigrants and sex workers. As these women are coming from Latin America, their notions are subject to change during their stay in Europe, as well as afterwards when they return to Latin America. For this reason she collected one third of the lifes stories in the Domician Republic.

Marie-Louise Janssen lectures in the areas of gender and sexuality studies, social sciences and research methods and techniques at the department of Sociology of the University of Amsterdam, and has published extensively on the intersection of sex work, migration and human trafficking. Her current research project is oriented on the state regulation of sex work in Curaçao.

Janssen participated in COST network: 'Comparing European Prostitution Policies: Understanding Scales and Cultures of Governance', and in Swexpertise, platform for the improvement of the position of sex workers in the Netherlands.

Academic Publications

• (2026) Janssen, M. and Schaap, D. 'Doing sexual risk in the Dutch Navy in colonial Curaçao', Health, Risk & Society.
• (2023) Stempvoort, van, M. & M. Janssen, Chapter 7 ‘Student Sex Work in the Netherlands: Motivations and the impact of Stigma’. In: Student Sex Work, D. Jones & T. Sanders (Eds.). Palgrave Macmillan.
• (2021) Janssen, M. and Oliveira, A. 'Introduction: Special Section 'Female Clients of Commercial Sex', Sexualities.

• (2021) Chapter 5 Sex Work Activism and Intersectionality: The role of stigma in uniting sex workers. In: L. Nencel and M. Skilbrei (eds.) Reworking Stigma through Sex Work Studies. Oxford: Routledge.

• (2020) Sex and Secrecy in the Field: Methodological Dilemmas in Research on Chinese Massage Parlours. In: The Sage Handbook of Global Sexualities, p. 183-203.

• (2019) Ine Vanwesenbeeck, Marie-Louise Janssen, and Marjan Wijers, 'Duizenden Slachtoffers van Seksuele Uitbuiting: Feit of Frame?', Tijdschrift voor Seksuologie, mei 2019. https://www.tijdschriftvoorseksuologie.nl/media/k2/attachments/Vanwesenbeeck_et_al.pdf

• (2018) Janssen, M. 'Alex Bakker, Transgender in Nederland. Een buitengewone geschiedenis', BMGN-Low Countries Historical Review, 133. DOI: https://www.bmgn-lchr.nl/articles/10.18352/bmgn-lchr.10635/

• (2018) 'Universities as Spaces of sexual Diversity: Students Engaged in Sex Work in Amsterdam', Realising Justice for Sex Workers. An Agenda for Change, S.A.FitzGerald and K. McGarry (eds.), London: Rowman & Littlefield International, pp. 81-101.

• (2018) ‘The Fluidity of a happy ending. Chinese masseuses in the Netherlands’, in: Understanding Sex for Sale: Meanings and Moralities of Sexual Commerce, May-Len Skilbrei and Marlene Spanger (eds.). Oxford: Routledge, pp. 142-158.

• (2017) 'De ongemakkelijke relatie tussen migratie en sekswerk', Tijdschrift voor Criminologie 2017 (59) 1-2, pp: 206-209.

• (2016) Niels Spierings & Marie-Louise Janssen, ‘Gender in het huidige sociologie onderwijs: thema en/of perspectief’, Tijdschrift voor Gender Studies, Vol. 19, no. 2, 2016.

• (2016) Students and Sex Work, Sociologie Magazine, 24, nr.1, Maart 2016: 18-20.

• (2012) The Position of Chinese masseuses in the Chinese beauty sector in the Netehrlands, Bottenberg, M. en M. Janssen, Driebergen.
• (2011) "Latin American Prostitutes in the Netherlands", in: The Encyclopedia of Migration and Minorities in Europe. From the 17th Centuryto the Present. K.J. Bade, P.C. Emmer, L. Lucassen, J. Oltmer (eds.), New York: Cambridge University Press.
• (2011) "Human Trafficking and the Sex Industry", The Encyclopedia of Global Studies, Mark Juergensmeyer and Helmut Anheier (eds), University of California and University of Heidelberg .
• (2011), "Emerging Voices in the Prostitution Debate. Sex Work in the 20th Century", in Sexuality in the Modern Age, Julie Peakman (ed.) Oxford: Berg Publishers.
• (2010) "State Regulation of Prostitution in the Netherlands Antilles", Column in Anthropology News, Society for Latin American and Caribbean Anthropology.
• (2007) "Lateinamerikanische Prostituierte in den Niederlanden seit den 1970er Jahren" (Latin American prostitutes in the Netherlands since the 1970s),in: Enzyklopädie Migration in Europa. Vom 17.Jahrhundert bis zur Gegenwart, K. J. Bade, P.C. Emmer, L. Lucassen, J. Oltmer (eds.), München: Wilhelm Fink, pp.764-767.
• (2006), "Una realidad vivida, unarealidad callada. Construcción de identidad entre trabajadoras sexuales latinoamericanas", in: Imaginarios, identidades e historias. Miradas desde la antropologíadel género. South California: El Centro de Estudios Culturales ( cec )-Museo de la Universidad Autónoma de Baja California .
• (2003), "Border Constructions of Gender Identity: A Colombian transvestite in Dutch Prostitution", in: Development, Migration: Citizenship, identity and rights , Vol. 46, No 3, Sept. 2003.
• (2002), "Paid Sex in Europe . Fantasy and performance of femininity", in: Nieuwste Tijd , Quarterly Magazine for Contemporary History , April 2002, vol.1, (4), Uitgeverij Wereldbibliotheek, Amsterdam.

Book:

• Marie-Louise Janssen (2007) Reizende Sekswerkers. Levensverhalen van Latijns-Amerikaanse vrouwen in de Europese prostitutie. Amsterdam: Het Spinhuis.
• M. Janssen and F. Polanía Molina (1998), I never thought this would happen tome. Prostitution and Traffic in Latin American women in the Netherlands. Fundación ESPERANZA: Amsterdam.

Teaching

This academic year Marie-Louise Janssen is teaching the courses:

• Rethinking Porn (Feb-April 2027)
• Introduction to Gender and Sexuality Studies - MINOR (Sept-Dec 2026)
• Sociology of Action (Okt-Dec 2026)
• Summer Institute on Sexuality, Culture & Society, Part 2, 2026, UvA, Amsterdam.
• Summer Institute on Sexuality, Culture & Society, Part 1, 2026, UvA, Amsterdam.
• MA Thesis Seminar The Practice and Politics of Sexuality (Feb-July 2026)
• MA Thesis seminar Telling Gender and Sexual Stories (Feb-July 2021)
• Sex Work in its Local and Global Complexity (BA) (Feb-March 2021)
• Introduction to Gender and Sexuality Studies (Sept-Dec 2020)
• Intersections of Culture, Sexuality & Gender (MA) (Sept - Dec 2020)
• Bachelor Onderzoek Sociologie Gender and Sexuality, 2019, UvA.
• Summer Course Introduction into Sexuality Studies, 2019, UvA, Amsterdam.
• Summer Course Sexuality, Culture and Society, 2019, UvA.
• Theorizing Sexualities (BA) (Feb-March 2018)
• Intersectionalities of Gender. Why Gender is not the final answer (BA) (Feb-March 2017)