About Samira

Samira Rafaela is a writer, policy architect, and international speaker. Samira studied public administration at Leiden University and holds a master’s degree in crisis and security management.

She is a former Member of the European Parliament and co-architect of the EU Pay Transparency Directive, landmark legislation advancing pay equity for millions across Europe. In 2020, Samira was awarded the Harper’s Bazaar International Woman of the Year Award and was selected as one of Politico Europe’s 20 members of the European Parliament to watch for her contribution to making trade greener and fairer. In 2024, the Member of the European Parliament Influence Index named Samira one of the most influential members for trade and social policies during the mandate 2019-2024.

In the European Parliament, she was also the co-architect of the EU Forced Labor Ban regulation, and she’s a current member of the European Commission’s Expert Group on Forced Labor to advise on the implementation of the law.

Following her parliamentary work, she spent time in the United States as a Visiting Fellow at Cornell University Law School, where she researched global pay transparency legislation and lectured on gender-responsive lawmaking. She was also a visiting fellow at Cornell Global Labor Institute, where she advised on forced labor legislation and trade policies and collaborated with leading international think tanks, including CSIS as a nonresident senior advisor for the CSIS human rights initiative. In her work, she focuses on gender equality, trade, EU governance, and transatlantic policy.

In May 2026, Samira Rafaela published her new book on women’s health in the Netherlands with publisher Atlas Contact. The book builds on her earlier public initiative Let’s Talk About Our Bodies and examines how politics, medicine, and culture have systematically overlooked women’s bodies and what it means to address that silence.

Alongside her writing and public work, she advises organizations on implementing the EU Pay Transparency Directive and its broader societal impact. She will help companies and organizations translate law into practice, but also help organizations anticipate political, social, and regulatory change.