Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum has launched an investigation of Mexico’s anti-sexual harassment laws after she was groped while speaking to supporters on Tuesday.
In a video which went viral on social media, a middle-aged man can be seen putting his arm around the president, 63, touching her chest and attempting to kiss her. Sheinbaum can be seen pushing his hands away from her before a member of her staff steps in, as her security detail was not present at the time.
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The assault on the president, who said she would press charges, has reignited debate about women’s safety in the country, which has long been plagued by sexual harassment and a femicide crisis. It has also raised questions about how effective Mexico’s laws against sexual harassment are.
According to Statista, the data platform, in 2024, 797 women were killed on account of their gender.
Here’s what we know:
What has Sheinbaum said?
Following the incident, the president said she would be reviewing nationwide laws against sexual harassment.
In a news conference, Sheinbaum expressed anger about the problem of sexual harassment in Mexico. “I say this not as president, but as a woman and on behalf of Mexican women,” she added.
“It should not happen. No one can violate our personal space, no one. No man has the right to violate that space; the only way is with the woman’s consent,” she added.
The president pointed out that the man had committed a common-law offence in Mexico City and called on the Secretariat of Women to investigate whether it was a criminal offence in all states, as well.
Mexico City is a federal district and is not counted as one of Mexico’s 31 states, whose laws vary.
Sheinbaum, Mexico’s first female president, called for a nationwide campaign to be launched and for all states to come together “beyond politics … defending the integrity of Mexican women”.
“Just as it is my responsibility to lead the nation by the will of the Mexican people, when I said that we all arrived, it also has to do with this: that, indeed, girls feel safe and free in our country,” she added.
The president also separately ruled out increasing her security detail and said, “We have to be close to the people.”
Is sexual harassment a crime in Mexico?
It varies.
While femicide is considered a crime across all Mexican states and in Mexico City, sexual harassment is not considered a crime in all states.
According to the federal penal code, sexual harassment is defined as a person who “for lewd purposes, repeatedly harasses a person of any sex”.
But of Mexico’s 32 federal entities – Mexico City plus 31 states – only 16 criminalise sexual harassment.
These include:
- Baja California Sur
- Sinaloa
- Nayarit
- Jalisco
- Coahuila
- Tamaulipas
- San Luis Potosí
- Guanajuato
- Queretaro
- State of Mexico
- Guerrero
- Puebla
- Veracruz
- Campeche
- Quintana Roo
- Mexico City
How have people in Mexico responded?
The Secretariat of Women, a new government ministry which was launched at the start of this year under Sheinbaum, who was elected a year before, condemned the assault.
In a statement, it said that it is “essential that men understand that these types of acts not only violate women but are also a crime”.
“These types of violence should not be trivialised; on the contrary, denouncing them is fundamental to achieving justice and contributing to a cultural shift, which also involves how they are addressed by the media and in our everyday conversations,” the ministry said.
“We call for this event not to be used to re-victimise any woman, girl, or adolescent who has suffered an act of violence; and we urge traditional media outlets and digital platforms not to reproduce content that threatens the integrity of women, adolescents, and girls,” it added.
Veronica Cruz from the feminist collective Las Libres (The Free Ones) told the AFP news agency that, every day, women are “experiencing this situation of harassment, of intimidation”.
Cruz added that the fact of “it happening even to the president of the Republic” was indicative of 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, in 2021, at least 70.1 percent of Mexican women aged 15 years and over had experienced some type of violence at least once throughout their life, including sexual, psychological, economic and physical violence.
In 2023, the UN Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (UN ECLAC) reported 1.3 femicides per 100,000 women in Mexico, translating to the killing of 852 women, or more than two women each day.
Mexico is not alone in Latin America when it comes to high femicide rates. In Brazil, there are 1.4 cases per 100,000 women, while the figures are even higher in the Dominican Republic – 2.4 – and Honduras – 7.2.
While femicide rates have declined somewhat over the past three years, in May, the lack of protection for Mexican women in society was brought to the fore once again following the fatal shooting of a young woman while she was livestreaming on TikTok.
Valeria Marquez was streaming video to her audience of 113,000 followers from a beauty salon in Guadalajara, Jalisco, when she was killed by an unseen man who fled by motorbike.
So far, no one has been arrested, but the Jalisco state prosecutor’s office said the case was being investigated.
In September 2017, protests erupted after the body of 19-year-old Mara Fernanda Castilla was found near a motel in the state of Puebla. She had gone missing while using a ride-hailing app.
Puebla authorities said they believe a driver from the taxi-hailing application, Cabify, had killed her.
