Andrea Becerril and Georgina Saldierna
La Jornada Newspaper
Wednesday, December 10, 2025, p. 4
Unanimously, the Senate approved the reforms to the Federal Penal Code (CPF) aimed at clearly redefining the crime of sexual abuse, without gender stereotypes, which encourage impunity, with sanctions of three to seven years in prison, which can reach 10 with aggravated circumstances, in addition to establishing mandatory reductive measures for aggressors.
The modification to articles 260 and 266 of the CPF were endorsed with 97 votes in favor and zero against, after which they were sent to the Chamber of Deputies.
This is an initiative presented by the president of the Senate, Laura Itzel Castillo, and the heads of the Gender Equality commissions of both chambers of Congress, Senator Malú Micher and Representative Anaís Miriam Burgos.
The new text of article 260 establishes: “the crime of sexual abuse is committed by anyone who, without the consent of the victim and without the purpose of reaching copulation, performs in the public or private sphere any act of a sexual nature, forces her to observe it, or makes her perform it on herself, for a third party or for the active subject herself. It is also considered sexual abuse when the victim is forced to exhibit her body.”
It is also defined that “a sexual act is understood as touching, caressing, body rubbing, exhibitions or explicit sexual representations” and it is specified that consent will not be considered “when the person’s will has been annulled or vitiated by violence, intimidation, deception, threat, abuse of trust, authority or situation of vulnerability.”
Likewise, it is noted that “the silence, passivity or lack of physical resistance of the victim” cannot be considered consent to the act of sexual abuse. This last point is placed at the center of the new criminal type.
“It was good that they told us that it was not sexual abuse because you remained silent, because you did not defend yourself, because you did not scream! It is not correct and that is why we are presenting this reform,” said Micher.
The senator added that measures to repair the damage and guarantees of non-repetition are also incorporated. He explained that in the case of the sentences they found that they varied in each state of the Republic, some were up to 25 years and others were very low, so an average was established that ranges from three to seven years, but with aggravating factors of a third more due to the fact that the aggressor is a relative of the victim, someone he trusts or his superior at work, among others.
The aggressors will be required to attend reductive workshops with a gender perspective and non-violence against women and/or provide social service in favor of the State or public charity institutions.
On the platform, Morena senator Judith Díaz stated that she is a “survivor of childhood sexual abuse,” but at that time “we had no one to turn to, we lived in fear, guilt, and we were silent because there was no one to defend us.”
The initiative was presented on November 25, after a subject harassed President Claudia Sheinbaum, in the Zócalo.
