Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum on Tuesday launched an investigation into Mexico’s anti-sexual harassment laws after she was groped while speaking to supporters.
A video circulating on social media shows a middle-aged man putting his arm around the 63-year-old president, touching his chest and attempting to kiss him. Sheinbaum was seen pushing her hand away before staff intervened, as security was not present at the time.
Recommended stories
list of 3 itemsend of list
The assault against the president, who has said he will press charges, has reignited debate over women’s safety in a country long plagued by sexual harassment and femicide crisis. Questions have also been raised about how effective Mexico’s anti-sexual harassment laws are.
According to data platform Statista, 797 women will be murdered because of their gender in 2024.
Here’s what we know:
What did Sheinbaum say?
After the incident, the president said he would review national laws against sexual harassment.
Sheinbaum expressed anger at Mexico’s sexual harassment problem at a press conference. “I say this not as a president, but as a woman and on behalf of Mexican women,” she added.
“That shouldn’t happen. No one can invade our personal space. No one has the right to invade that space. The only way is with the consent of women,” she added.
The president noted that the man had committed a customary law violation in Mexico City and asked the Secretariat for Women to investigate whether it was a criminal offense in all states as well.
Mexico City is a federal district and is not counted as one of Mexico’s 31 states, which have different laws.
Sheinbaum, Mexico’s first female president, launched a nationwide campaign calling on all states to come together “beyond politics… to protect the integrity of Mexican women.”
“It is also connected to this, as I said that we have all arrived, just as it is my responsibility to lead the country according to the will of the Mexican people. It is true that the girls feel safe and free in our country,” she added.
Separately, the president also ruled out tightening security details, saying: “We have to stand by our people.”
Is sexual harassment a crime in Mexico?
It varies.
Femicide is considered a crime in all states of Mexico and Mexico City, but sexual harassment is not considered a crime in all states.
According to federal criminal law, a sexual harasser is defined as someone who “repeatedly harasses a person of any gender for any sexual purpose.”
But only 16 of Mexico’s 32 federal agencies, including Mexico City and 31 states, criminalize sexual harassment.
These include:
Baja California Sur Sinaloa Nayarit Jalisco Coahuila Tamaulipas San Luis Potosi Guanajuato Queretaro Mexico Guerrero Puebla Veracruz Campeche Quintana Roo Mexico City
How did the Mexican people react?
The Office for Women, a new ministry launched earlier this year under Mr. Sheinbaum, who was elected a year ago, condemned the assault.
“It is essential that men understand that this type of behavior not only violates women, but is also a crime,” the group said in a statement.
“This type of violence should not be trivialized; on the contrary, condemning it is fundamental to achieving justice and contributing to cultural change, and this also involves how violence is treated in the media and in our everyday conversations,” the ministry said.
“We call on this event not to be used to re-victimize women, girls and adolescents who have been subjected to acts of violence, and we call on traditional media and digital platforms not to reproduce content that threatens the integrity of women, adolescents and girls,” it added.
Veronica Cruz, from the feminist group Las Libres (The Free Ones), told AFP that women “experience situations of harassment and intimidation” every day.
Cruz added that the fact that “the same thing happened even to the president of the republic” shows the scale of the problem.
How serious is violence against women in Mexico?
A report by the National Institute of Statistics and Geography revealed that as of 2021, at least 70.1 percent of Mexican women over the age of 15 have experienced some form of violence at least once in their lifetime, including sexual, psychological, economic, and physical violence.
In 2023, the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (UN ECLAC) reported that Mexico had a femicide rate of 1.3 per 100,000 women, which translates to 852 women or more than two murdered every day.
Mexico is not the only country in Latin America with a high rate of female homicide. Brazil has 1.4 infections per 100,000 women, the Dominican Republic has 2.4 and Honduras has even higher rates of 7.2.
Although the female homicide rate has declined slightly over the past three years, the lack of protection for Mexican women in society came to the fore again in May after a young woman was shot and killed while live streaming on TikTok.
Valeria Marquez was streaming a video to her 113,000 followers from a hair salon in Guadalajara, Jalisco, when she was killed by an unidentified man who fled on a motorcycle.
No one has been arrested so far, but the Jalisco state prosecutor’s office said the incident is under investigation.
Protests erupted in September 2017 after the body of 19-year-old Mara Fernanda Castilla was found near a motel in Puebla state. She went missing while using a ride-hailing app.
Puebla city authorities said they believe a driver for the taxi-hailing app Cabify killed her.
In 2020, the body of 7-year-old Fatima Aldriget was found in Mexico City with signs of abuse after she went missing after leaving school.
