Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum said on Wednesday that she had filed a criminal 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 news 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, Andrés Manuel López 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.”
Sheinbaum was making the short walk from Mexico’s National Palace to the Ministry of Education when she was accosted.
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.
Mexico City Mayor Clara Brugada had announced overnight that the man had been arrested.
‘The use of the image is also a crime’
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 lacklustre 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.
Incident follows outdoor assassination of mayor
The unnerving incident happened the same day Sheinbaum met with the widow of a mayor in western Michoacán state who was assassinated in public on Saturday.
A hooded gunman shot and killed 40-year-old Carlos Manzo, mayor of Uruapan, as he attended a candlelight festival in an attack that sparked national outrage and some protests that occasionally turned violent. Manzo had been outspoken in his criticism of the federal government for not doing more to fight organized crime, which plagues the region.
Grecia Quiroz, Manzo’s widow, has agreed to succeed her husband in the role and was set to be sworn in on Wednesday.
“They took the father of my children from me, but they were wrong, this isn’t over,” Quiroz said at a Monday memorial service.
Carlos Bautista, leader of the Independent Hat Movement, to which Manzo belonged, told Reuters that the new mayor will be protected by at least 14 security agents.
Authorities have arrested two people in connection with Manzo’s killing and pledged to continue investigating.
