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Samira Rafaela
MEP
Samira Rafaela MEP
	Rafaela in 2019
Member of the European Parliament; for the Netherlands
	In office; 2 July 2019 – 15 July 2024
Parliamentary group	Renew Europe
Personal details
Born	11 February 1989 (age 35); Zoetermeer, Netherlands
Political party	Democrats 66
Alma mater	Leiden University

Samira Rafaela (born 11 February 1989) is a Dutch politician of Democrats 66. She served as a Member of the European Parliament between 2019 and 2024,^[1]^[2] and she was also a member of the Young Democrats.^[2]

Early life

Rafaela grew up with her Jewish Dutch-Curaçaoan mother in Uitgeest. Her father was of Ghanaian-Nigerian descent and a practicing Muslim. She considers herself a progressive, liberal, feminist Muslim.^[3]

She attended Bonhoeffer College in Castricum^[4] and studied public administration at Leiden University. She did research on the causes of radicalization and terrorism and obtained a master's degree in Crisis and Security Management.^[5] She worked as a policy maker and administrative advisor for the municipality of Amsterdam. In 2016, she transferred to the Police Netherlands, where she acted as project leader for inclusion.^[6] As a social entrepreneur, she worked in Africa with young talent and as an international trainer and speaker on women's participation, leadership, security and inclusion.

Political career

Rafaela was elected a Member of the European Parliament in the 2019 election, making her the first Dutch MEP with Afro-Caribbean roots.^[7] She has been a member of the Committee on International Trade (since 2019), the Committee on Women's Rights and Gender Equality (since 2019)^[2] and the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs (since 2021).^[8]

In addition to her committee assignments, Rafaela is part of the Parliament's delegations to the Euro-Latin American Parliamentary Assembly (EuroLat) and to the EU–Chile Joint Parliamentary Committee.^[2] She also co-chairs the European Parliament Anti-Racism and Diversity Intergroup and is a member of the European Parliament Intergroup on Artificial Intelligence and Digital^[9] and the European Parliament Intergroup on Disability.^[10]^[11]

Rafaela was the lead negotiator for the EU Pay Transparency directive.^[12] She was also the Rapporteur for the Forced Labour Regulation, an EU law that will ban products made from forced labour from the EU single market.^[13]

On 3 May 2022, an internal commission of D66 investigated complaints of 3 former co-workers of the European D66-delegation about, among other things, abuse of power by Rafaela.^[14] She received a warning, but a dispute committee ruled in November of the same year that the investigation was sloppy and that the warning was unjustified.^[15]^[16]

In 2023, Rafaela – together with Malin Björk and Evin Incir – alleged in a letter to the President of the European Parliament Roberta Metsola that their fellow MEPs Anders Vistisen, Isabella Adinolfi and Cristian Terheș breached Parliament's rules on offensive language during a debate on the ratification of the 2011 Istanbul convention against gender-based violence and urged Metsola to investigate.^[17] On 21 December 2023, she announced she would not seek re-election in the 2024 European Parliament election.^[18] Her term ended on 15 July 2024.^[2]