Samira Rafaela was a member of the European Parliament from 2019 to 2024. She was a member of the International Trade Women’s Rights and Gender Equality and Employment and Social Affairs committees.
Before serving in the European Parliament, she was the national project leader for diversity and inclusion on the commissioner’s staff of the Netherlands Police. She studied public administration at Leiden University and specialized in crisis and security management.
As a trade committee member in the European Parliament, she has made trade policies more gender-sensitive, fair and progressive. Samira was the parliament’s lead negotiator for the groundbreaking EU law against forced labor. Known as the Forced Labor Ban, it combats forced labor within the EU and in relation to products imported into the EU market.
She was also the rapporteur on the groundbreaking Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive for the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs. As standing rapporteur for the trade agreement with Chile, she effectively advocated for the first dedicated EU gender and grade chapter on behalf of the European Parliament. For Samira, the economic empowerment of women and the inclusion of a gender and human rights lens in EU trade policy are key issues to create a fairer world, and so is an equal trade relation with Africa and Latin America.
In 2020, Samira was selected by Politico Europe as one of the 20 MEPs to watch in 2020 for her contribution to making trade more green and fair. In 2024, the MEP Influence Index mentioned Samira as one of the most influential MEPs in the area of trade and social policies in the full mandate of ’19-’24.
She was also the lead negotiator on the new EU Pay Transparency directive. This directive aims to promote transparency and fairness in pay by requiring EU companies to disclose information about their pay practices, including gender pay gaps.
In 2020, Samira won the Harper’s Bazaar International Woman of the Year Award for her efforts for the economic and social independence of women in Europe. She has championed sexual and reproductive health and rights for women as the sexual and reproductive health and rights coordinator for Renew Europe in the European Parliament.
In 2016, Samira completed the Transatlantic Inclusion Leaders Network program of the German Marshall Fund of the United States. She is now a nonresident visiting fellow at the Cornell ILR School’s Global Labor Institute, where she works on her expertise – forced labor and corporate accountability.
