Mexico President Claudia Sheinbaum was groped by a drunk man while taking a five-minute walk from Mexico’s National Palace to the Education Ministry— an incident caught on video that has ignited a national conversation about harassment in Mexico.
According to The Associated Press, during her daily press briefing Wednesday, Sheinbaum confirmed she had filed charges against the man, calling for stronger laws and simpler procedures for women to report assaults.
“Women’s personal space must not be violated,” Sheinbaum said. “If this is done to the president, what is going to happen to all of the young women in our country?”
The video, showing a man approaching Sheinbaum from behind, putting his hands on her, and leaning in for a kiss, underscored what many women in Mexico face daily.
Andrea González Martínez, 27, said she’s experienced similar harassment on public transportation. “It happens regularly,” she said. “It’s something you experience every day in Mexico.”
Her coworker, Carmen Maldonado Castillo, 43, said, “It’s not good that men attack us. You can’t walk around free in the street.”
Sheinbaum said she understood the issue deeply. “I decided to press charges because this is something that I experienced as a woman, but that we as women experience in our country,” she said, recalling being harassed as a 12-year-old commuting to school.
Mexico City Mayor Clara Brugada announced that the man had been arrested.
Questions were raised about Sheinbaum’s security, but she dismissed suggestions she would increase her protection, saying the walk was meant to save time — just five minutes compared to a 20-minute drive.
Brugada echoed Sheinbaum’s own words from her historic election as Mexico’s first female president. “It’s a commitment to not look the other way, to not allow misogyny to continue,” she said.
Lilian Valvuena, 31, said the incident showed Sheinbaum the reality of what women endure. “They have to prepare [police],” she said. “They don’t know what protocols to follow.”
Marina Reyna, executive director of the Guerrero Association against Violence toward Women, said she was initially concerned Sheinbaum downplayed the assault but praised her decision to address it publicly.
“You lose confidence in the institutions,” Reyna said. “The people stop going to report it, because when you report it nothing happens.”
