Claudia Sheinbaum is pressing charges against a man who was caught groping her in the street while she was interacting with citizens in Mexico City.
Footage of the incident, which was taken on Tuesday while Sheinbaum was on her way back to the National Palace after attending an event at the Ministry of Public Education, shows a man approaching the Mexican president from behind and trying to kiss her neck and run his hands up and down her body.
In the video, Sheinbaum is seen grabbing the man’s hands and turning to face him as a security guard intervenes, steering the man away from the president.
On Wednesday, Sheinbaum stated in her daily press briefing that she had pressed charges against the man, adding that she felt it was her responsibility to inform victims of harassment that such behaviour would not be tolerated.
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“I decided to file a complaint because this is something I experienced as a woman, and it’s something women in our country go through,” she told reporters.
“And my reflection is, if I don’t file a complaint — even though this is a crime — then what position does that leave all Mexican women in? If they do this to the president, then what will happen to all the young women in our country?” she added.
Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum arrives at a polling station to vote in the country’s first judicial elections on June 1.
AP Photo/Marco Ugarte
She also called on Mexican states to look at their laws and procedures to make it easier for women to report such assaults and said Mexicans needed to hear a “loud and clear ‘no’ … women’s personal space must not be violated.”
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According to Sheinbaum, the man went on to harass other women along the same street.
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“This person is now under arrest,” she said, alleging that he was noticeably drunk and under the influence of drugs when he groped her.
Andrea González Martínez, 27, who works for Mexican lender Nacional Monte de Piedad, told The Associated Press that she has been harassed on public transport, and in one instance was followed home.
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“It happens regularly, it happens on public transportation,” she said. “It’s something you experience every day in Mexico.”
Her co-worker, Carmen Maldonado Castillo, 43, said she has witnessed it.
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“It’s not good that men attack us,” she said. “You can’t walk around free in the street.”
When Sheinbaum was elected, she said it wasn’t just her coming to power; it was all women.
Mexico City Mayor Clara Brugada leaned on Sheinbaum’s words to reiterate that the harassment of any woman is an assault against all women.
“If they attack the president, they attack us all,” she wrote on X.
Brugada said that was “not a slogan, it’s a commitment to not look the other way, to not allow misogyny to continue to be veiled in habits, to not accept a single additional humiliation, not another abuse, not a single femicide more.”
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The incident immediately raised questions about the president’s security.
Still, Sheinbaum dismissed any suggestion that she would increase her security or alter her interactions with people, explaining that she and her team had decided to walk from the National Palace to the Education Ministry to save time. She said they could walk it in five minutes, rather than taking a 20-minute car ride.
— With files from The Associated Press
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