Samira Rafaela

Samira Rafaela has been a Member of the European Parliament from 2019 to 2024. In the European Parliament, Samira was a Member of the Committee on International Trade where she was the Coordinator for Renew Europe. As trade member, she has made trade policies more gender-sensitive, fair, and progressive. Samira was the Parliament’s lead negotiator for the new groundbreaking EU law against forced labor, known as the Forced Labor Ban Instrument, combating 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 Gender and Trade 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 as Politico Europe’s one of the 20 MEPs to watch 2020 for her contribution to making trade more green and fair. She is currently the lead negotiator on the new EU Pay Transparency directive in the bio. 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.