Mexico’s President Presses Charges Against Man Who Groped Her on the Street

A video of a man touching Mexico’s first female president, Claudia Sheinbaum, shocked many Mexicans but did not surprise them. “It’s so common,” one woman said.

A day after a man groped Mexico’s president, Claudia Sheinbaum, in an episode captured on video, she announced on Wednesday that she had reported the incident to the police as a crime.

“My reflection was: If I don’t file a complaint, then what message does that send to all Mexican women?” Ms. Sheinbaum said at her daily news conference, noting sexual harassment was a crime in Mexico City, where the episode took place. “If this can happen to the president, what’s going to happen to all the young women and women across our country?”

The man could be seen on the video, which circulated widely on social media, approaching the president on Tuesday as she was walking in the city’s historic center. He moved to kiss the president and put his hands on her breasts, the video showed, before her personnel intervened.

The episode immediately raised questions about the president’s security, and set off conversations among women about their own experiences.

It also caused concern among many over the apparent lack of progress for women as a whole: Ms. Sheinbaum, Mexico’s first female president, made ending violence against women a cornerstone of her campaign, but only a year after being elected, she was groped by a stranger in public.

Such harassment is not considered a crime at the federal level, Ms. Sheinbaum said Wednesday, nor is it a crime in all Mexican states — a point that Ms. Sheinbaum said she would ask officials to examine, so that all women could press charges as she had.

“We need to make this visible and say no — a firm no,” Ms. Sheinbaum said. “Women’s personal space must not be violated. How do we address this? Through awareness campaigns, through schools — because this is also about educating men. And we must make sure that when women file complaints, they are taken seriously and not made to waste a whole day, which discourages them from reporting.”

She added: “I don’t want this to be a privilege of the president.”

The man was arrested and identified by the authorities as Uriel Rivera Martínez, 33.

Ms. Sheinbaum said he had been “totally inebriated” when he approached her, and that he had accosted other women the same day.

It was not clear whether Mr. Rivera had a lawyer.

At the time of the incident, Ms. Sheinbaum was walking between meetings to save time, she said at the news conference. A government spokesman confirmed she did not have security and was accompanied by one aide.

At Wednesday’s news conference, Ms. Sheinbaum said the incident would not prompt her to take greater precautions or change her habit of mingling with people, something she has made a point of, including after recent flooding in the state of Veracruz.

“As for my security — we’re not going to change who we are. We can’t be far from the people, ” she said. “For now, our aides will continue supporting us, but we have to stay close to the people. To isolate ourselves, to ride around in a van — we have no known risk that would justify that.”

Ms. Sheinbaum’s constituents have invaded her personal space before, including in June, while meeting with victims of Hurricane Erick in Oaxaca. On that trip, an older woman gave the president a peck on the cheek, an incident captured in another video circulated widely.

This week’s episode prompted many Mexican women to reflect online on how commonplace it was to be touched or groped, even while walking during the day, as Ms. Sheinbaum was on Tuesday.

“In broad daylight and in front of a lot of people,” said María Fernanda Rodríguez, a political scientist and member of Mujeres en Plural, an organization that defends women’s political rights. “And that recurs, well, daily — during the day, at night, all over, sadly.”

Alejandra Rivera, a restaurant hostess, said, “It’s something we shouldn’t grow accustomed to — but it’s so common.”

Ms. Rivera and many women interviewed in Mexico City recalled being groped on public transportation or fearing that their daughters would be.

As crowds squeezed off metro cars, said Angélica Hernández, “they touch you everywhere and you can’t tell who it was.” The police only filed a report if you had a name, she said.

Those who study gender-based violence in Mexico said Ms. Sheinbaum’s moves to speak out against harassment and to criminalize it represented a meaningful departure from the status quo.

“It sends an important message that such violence is completely real,” said Wendy Briceño, a former lawmaker in Ms. Sheinbaum’s party who led a commission on gender equality.

“Once you start talking about it,” said Alice Driver, an American journalist who spent a decade in Mexico documenting violence against women, “you realize the kinds of issues that women face on a daily basis when it comes to men thinking that they can touch or kiss or grope you, simply for existing in public space.”

She went on: “So I think it’s a really important that Sheinbaum has used this as a moment to talk not only about what happened to her — but how laws need to be changed.”

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