On Wednesday, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum announced she had filed charges against a man who sexually assaulted her on the street the previous day.

A video widely shared on social media captures the moment a man approaches Sheinbaum from behind, wraps his arm around her, and plants a kiss on her neck. The incident was interrupted by Juan José Ramírez Mendoza, identified by Sheinbaum as her aide, who stepped in to intervene.

During her daily press briefing, Sheinbaum, Mexico’s first female president, said the man appeared intoxicated and she did not realize what had occurred until Ramírez Mendoza stepped in. 

Sheinbaum stated that her decision to pursue legal action was influenced by personal experience and the broader context of harassment women face in Mexico. She recalled a similar experience of harassment on public transportation when she was just 12 years old.

Clara Brugada, the Mayor of Mexico City, confirmed on the social media platform X that the man had been apprehended by the country’s Secretariat of Security and Citizen Protection.

“If they touch the president, they touch all of us,” Brugada emphasized in her statement.

Mexico City police were able to link the man to two other incidents of harassment against Mexico on Tuesday, CNN reported.

Sheinbaum said Wednesday that she and her team decided to walk from the National Palace to the Education Ministry to avoid traffic. The Presidential General Staff, a military body that assists with the president’s security, was dissolved by Sheinbaum’s predecessor, former Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador.

Sheinbaum also called on states to improve safeguards for women to report assaults saying that “women’s personal spaces must not be violated.”

In 2021, 49.7 percent of women ages 15 and older in Mexico reported they had experienced sexual violence at some point in their life, with 34.7 percent saying they had experienced physical violence at some point, according to a report from country’s National Institute of Statistics and Geography. 

That same year, 99.7 percent of sexual violence incidents against women went unreported, according to México Evalúa, a think tank that analyzes the country’s policies.

The Associated Press contributed.