Samira Rafaela

Samira Rafaela (born 11 February 1989) is a Dutch politician of Democrats 66, who has been serving as a Member of the European Parliament since 2019 and was also a member of the Young Democrats.

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.

She attended Bonhoeffer College in Castricum 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. 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. 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. She has been a member of the Committee on International Trade (since 2019), the Committee on Women's Rights and Gender Equality (since 2019) and the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs (since 2021).

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. 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 and the European Parliament Intergroup on Disability.

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. She was reprimanded, but a mediation committee ruled in November of the same year that the investigation was sloppy and that the reprimanding was unjustified.

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. On 21 December 2023, she announced she would not seek re-election in the 2024 European Parliament election.

Recognition

 * 2020 – International Woman of the Year, awarded by Harper's Bazaar