Mexico President Files Assault Complaint

Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum presented a plan on Thursday to encourage complaints and sanctions against sexual violence. These are suffered by thousands of women every year and by the leader herself this week.

(Keystone-ATS) Ms. Sheinbaum announced on Wednesday that she had filed a complaint after an attack in the street in the capital on Tuesday, while she was going to a public event and greeting well-wishers.

A man put his arm around the president’s shoulder and touched her hip and chest, while attempting to kiss her neck.

The left-wing leader, in power since October 2024, filed a complaint for “sexual harassment” against her attacker, identified and arrested a few hours after the events by the Mexico City police and accused of two other attacks the same day.

The offense of “sexual harassment” includes touching in the penal code of the capital Mexico City, which has one of the most advanced laws in the country. It punishes any behavior of a sexual nature, even without physical contact, causing psychosocial harm to the victim or violating their dignity, with penalties of up to six years in prison.

Claudia Sheinbaum ordered the harmonization of the laws of the 32 states that make up Mexico in order to guarantee that this behavior can be criminally prosecuted everywhere.

“Let what happened help women not feel alone in a comparable situation,” the president said at a press conference on Thursday. “For this, there must be institutions and a government that support them.”

More than 25,000 complaints for “sexual harassment” have been recorded in the country since the start of the year, said Citlalli Hernandez, head of the Ministry of Women.

And this even though many women do not dare to report these facts to the police, for fear of not being taken seriously.

President Sheinbaum called for a system for registering complaints that is “rapid, effective, and truly allows justice to be done” across the country.

“All women”

Street harassment and touching in public spaces are widespread in Mexico. In response, authorities have in recent years created spaces reserved for women on public transport, notably in Mexico City.

“I believe that all women here in Mexico have experienced something similar at some point,” said Yunué Valera, a 23-year-old student interviewed by AFP in the streets of the capital.

She claims not to know a single woman “who has not suffered some form of harassment in the metro, in the street, on public transport, on the way home, on the way to go shopping.”

Many Mexican women also say they choose their clothes carefully. “Since I was little, I have experienced things like this, I don’t wear dresses in the street for this reason (…) often people say that it is your fault because of the way you dress,” laments Ms. Valera.

Brenda Martinez, a 29-year-old coffee seller, is careful about her outfit for the same reasons and says she is worried about her thirteen-year-old daughter.

If the reforms of the last decade in the capital have encouraged complaints, prosecutions and convictions of the perpetrators do not always follow.