<div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>What should have been a five-minute time-saving walk from </span><a href="https://www.9news.com.au/mexico" rel="" target="_blank" title="Mexico's"><span>Mexico's</span></a><span> National Palace to the Education Ministry for President Claudia Sheinbaum has become a stomach-churning viral moment after a video captured a drunk man groping the president.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>The brief clip has given the daily harassment and assaults that women suffer in Mexico their highest-profile platform. And today, Sheinbaum used her daily press briefing to say that she had pressed charges against the man.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>She also called on states to look at their laws and procedures to make it easier for women to report such assaults and said Mexicans needed to hear a "loud and clear, no, women's personal space must not be violated".</span></div></div><div><div id="adspot-mobile-medium"></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><strong><span>READ MORE:</span></strong><span> </span><a href="https://www.9news.com.au/world/louisville-ups-plane-crash-update-death-toll-rises-to-nine/fde6a27a-6160-488f-9bf5-77fdb5d2418a" rel="" target="_blank" title=""><strong><span>Death toll rises to at least nine in Kentucky cargo plane crash</span></strong></a><strong><span></span></strong></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>Sheinbaum said she felt a responsibility to press charges, because if not, where would that leave Mexican women? </span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>"If this is done to the president, what is going to happen to all of the young women in our country?"</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>Indeed, if Mexico's president cannot be in the street for five minutes without a man approaching her from behind, putting his hands on her body and leaning in for a kiss, then it's not difficult to imagine what women with hours-long commutes on public transportation are experiencing daily.</span></div></div><div><div class="OUTBRAIN" data-reactroot="" data-src="//www.9news.com.au/world/mexico-president-claudia-sheinbaum-groped-in-the-street/23050d9d-97dc-489f-ae62-620b58fde68a" data-widget-id="AR_5"></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>Andrea González Martínez, 27, who works for Mexican lender Nacional Monte de Piedad, said she has been harassed on public transportation, in one case the man followed her home.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><strong><span>READ MORE:</span></strong><span> </span><a href="https://www.9news.com.au/world/us-wants-un-sanctions-on-syria-leader-lifted-before-trump-visit/08794162-25b1-49e8-9e98-e7d2c4a5abbd" rel="" target="_blank" title=""><strong><span>US wants UN reprieve for ex al-Qaeda fighter turned Syrian president</span></strong></a><strong><span></span></strong></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>"It happens regularly, it happens on public transportation," she said.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>"It's something you experience every day in Mexico."</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>Her coworker, Carmen Maldonado Castillo, 43, said she has witnessed it.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>"It's not good that men attack us," she said.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>"You can't walk around free in the street."</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><strong><span>READ MORE:</span></strong><span> </span><a href="https://www.9news.com.au/world/zohran-mamdani-wins-nyc-mayors-race-capping-a-stunning-ascent/1701efb5-c55a-4a71-85ef-2bd58c22a985" rel="" target="_blank" title=""><strong><span>'So it begins': Mamdani and Trump face off after historic win</span></strong></a><strong><span></span></strong></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>Sheinbaum said today that she understands how widespread the problem is.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>"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.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>She said she had similar experiences of harassment when she was 12 years old and using public transportation to get to school. </span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>As president, she said, she felt like she had a responsibility to all women.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>Mexico City Mayor Clara Brugada had announced overnight that the man had been arrested.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>The incident immediately raised questions about the president's security, but Sheinbaum dismissed any suggestion that she would increase her security or change how she interacts with people.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>She explained that she and her team had decided to walk from the National Palace to the Education Ministry to save time. </span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>She said they could walk it in five minutes, rather than taking a 20-minute car ride.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>Brugada used some of Sheinbaum's own language about being elected Mexico's first woman president to emphasise that harassment of any woman – in this case Mexico's most powerful – is an assault on all women.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>When Sheinbaum was elected, she said that it wasn't just her coming to power, it was all women. </span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>Brugada said that was "not a slogan, it's a commitment to not look the other way, to not allow misogyny to continue to be veiled in habits, to not accept a single additional humiliation, not another abuse, not a single femicide more."</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>Lilian Valvuena, 31, said she didn't think Sheinbaum had really taken violence against women seriously until yesterday when she had a first-hand experience. </span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>She hopes that work to better train police to respond will follow.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>"They have to prepare them," she said. </span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>"They don't know what protocols to follow."</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>Marina Reyna, executive director of the Guerrero Association against Violence toward Women, said that watching the video she initially worried that Sheinbaum had minimised the assault, continuing to smile and talk calmly to the man. </span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>But she hoped the president's willingness to talk about it today would change how such cases are handled.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>"You lose confidence in the institutions," Reyna said.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>"The people stop going to report it, because when you report it nothing happens."</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><a href="https://www.9news.com.au/national/how-to-follow-9news-digital/29855bb1-ad3d-4c38-bc25-3cb52af1216f" target="_blank"><strong><em><span>DOWNLOAD THE 9NEWS APP</span></em></strong></a><strong><em><span>: Stay across all the latest in breaking news, sport, politics and the weather via our news app and get notifications sent straight to your smartphone. 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