By Cassandra Garrison
MEXICO CITY (Reuters) -Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum said on Wednesday that she filed a complaint against a man who groped and tried to kiss her as she greeted members of the public, a day after a video of the incident went viral.
Sheinbaum, the Latin American nation’s first woman leader, said at her regular morning press conference that the incident was a crime, adding that she, like other women in Mexico, have experienced similar situations previously.
“If this happens to the president, what will happen to all the young women in our country,” Sheinbaum said, adding that the man was very drunk.
Video of the incident quickly ricocheted across the internet before being taken down by some accounts, underscoring for many in Mexico the insecurity women face in a country steeped in machismo and gender-based violence.
It has also raised questions about Sheinbaum’s security detail. Like her predecessor, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, Sheinbaum travels with minimal security and makes herself widely available to the public, including wading into crowds of people.
She said on Wednesday that she did not plan to change that practice, saying “we have to be close to the people.”
The incident happened on Tuesday in the capital’s historic center as Sheinbaum was making the short walk from Mexico’s national palace to the Ministry of Education.
The video shows a middle-aged man putting his arm around Sheinbaum, touching her chest and attempting to kiss her. She moves his hands away before a member of her staff steps between them. The president’s security detail did not appear to be near her in the moment.
The man was harassing other women in the street and was subsequently arrested, Sheinbaum said on Wednesday.
Sheinbaum also blasted Mexican newspaper Reforma for publishing images of the man groping her, saying she considered it a “re-victimization” and that it crossed an ethical line.
“The use of the image is also a crime,” Sheinbaum said. “I am waiting for an apology from the newspaper.”
The federal government’s Women’s Ministry, created under Sheinbaum, issued a statement on Tuesday encouraging women to report violence against them, but asking media outlets “not to reproduce content that violates the integrity of women.”
Still, feminist activists have sharply criticized Sheinbaum in the past for not doing enough to address violence against women. Among other things, they point to lackluster prosecutions and investigations of femicides – the killing of a woman because of her gender.
In 2024, Mexico recorded 821 femicides, according to government data. There have been 501 femicides recorded through September of this year, and many advocates say the numbers are likely far underestimated.
Ana Yeli Perez of the National Citizen Observatory on Femicide said the groping of Sheinbaum puts the issue of violence against women on the national agenda again.
“It’s reprehensible, it must be denounced, it must be named, because it’s an act of violence, but it’s also a significant event and symbolic of what women experience every day,” she said.
(Reporting by Cassandra Garrison; additional reporting by Raul Cortes; Editing by Emily Green and Bill Berkrot)
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