Groping of Mexican President highlights rampant sexual harassment

MEXICO CITY — Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum stopped to take selfies with a crowd of admirers as she made her way from one government office to another in the city’s capital this week.

A man approached from behind, put his arm around Sheinbaum’s shoulder, leaned down to place a kiss on her neck and briefly touch her breast before an aide led him away.

The harassment incident was caught on camera Video prepared by people around On Tuesday, it sparked outrage across the country, where there was renewed focus on the widespread sexual harassment women face on the streets and on public transport.

Sheinbaum, who was sworn in as Mexico’s first female president last year, seized the chance to draw renewed attention to the issue.

“If they do this to the president, what happens to all the young women in the country?” he asked on Wednesday.

Speaking at a daily news conference, Sheinbaum said Wednesday that authorities had filed a criminal complaint against the attacker, who he said was drunk at the time of the incident and was taken into custody.

Sheinbaum said his government would review state laws to ensure street harassment is classified as a crime throughout Mexico and launch a campaign to combat the phenomenon.

“I decided to file a complaint because this is something that all women in our country experience,” Sheinbaum said. “I experienced this before when I was not president. It should not happen. No one should violate our personal space. No one has the right to violate this space.”

Like his predecessor Andrés Manuel López Obrador (Sheinbaum), he often walks the streets without bodyguards and says he likes to be close to people.

It’s a practice that has won him good will, although it has come under scrutiny given the high levels of violence against politicians across Mexico. Over the weekend, the outspoken mayor of Uruapan, a city in Michoácan state, was shot and killed at a public event celebrating the Day of the Dead holiday despite being guarded by armed police and members of the National Guard.

The incident in Mexico City on Tuesday sparked outrage across the country, with many saying it was an example of the kind of abuse women face every day.

“If the most powerful woman in Mexico is subjected to harassment, what can women who travel on public transportation or walk alone every day expect?” Congresswoman Ivonne Ortega, a member of Sheinbaum’s Morena party, wrote of X: “This is the reality that millions of women and girls face every day.”

Writer Brenda Lozano said in

A survey of female public transport passengers in 16 cities around the world by the Thompson Reuters Foundation found that Mexico City had the biggest problem with sexual harassment, with 64% of respondents reporting being victims.

The Mexico City government has long provided women-only subway cars and even tried to combat harassment by arming female commuters with rape whistles.

Also Wednesday, Sheinbaum voiced her support for Mexico’s Miss Universe representative, who walked out of the pageant along with several other contestants after being berated by a male pageant official who called her an “idiot.”

Sheinbaum played on an old sexist saying from Mexico: “It’s more beautiful when it’s quiet.”

“Women are more beautiful when we raise our voices,” Sheinabum said.

Times staff writer Patrick J. McDonnell and Cecilia Sánchez Vidal of the Times’ Mexico City bureau contributed to this report.