Mexico President Sheinbaum To Press Charges After Harassment, Calls It An Assault On All Women

Mexico President Claudia Sheinbaum on Wednesday said that she will press charges against the man who harassed her as it was an assault on all women. Mexico City Mayor Clara Brugada had announced overnight that the man had been arrested.

The incident occurred on Tuesday when Sheinbaum was speaking to a group of citizens on a street near the National Palace in Mexico City. In a video, a man can be seen approaching her from behind and attempts to kiss her on the neck and place his hands on her body.

Sheinbaum highlighted that this was not the first time she had suffered such harassment and that the problem went far beyond the President. “No man has the right to violate that space,” she said, AP reported. 

"My view is, if I don't file a complaint, what will happen to other Mexican women? If they do this to the president, what will happen to all women in our country?" Sheinbaum said at a news conference on Wednesday.

“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. “I have experienced it before, when I wasn't President, when I was a student.”

Sheinbaum said that she and her team had decided to walk from the National Palace to the Education Ministry to save time. She said they could walk it in five minutes, rather than taking a 20-minute car ride. She said she would not change how she acts.

According to reports, Femicide is also a huge problem in Mexico, with a staggering 98 percent of gender-based murders estimated to go unpunished, BBC reported.