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^[1][2] and was also a member of the Young Democrats.^[2]

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.

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]

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.^[12] 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.^[13]

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.^[14] On 21 December 2023, she announced she would not seek re-election in the 2024 European Parliament election.^[15]

• 2020 – International Woman of the Year, awarded by Harper's Bazaar^[16]