Andrea Becerril
La Jornada Newspaper
Sunday, December 7, 2025, p. 6
The reform to update and strengthen the legal framework around the crime of sexual abuse, with a clearer definition of this crime, as well as based on international standards and penalties that can reach up to 10 years in prison, is ready to be voted on next week in the Senate.
The president of the Commission for Gender Equality, Malú Micher, commented that the definitions of this crime in the Federal Penal Code are imprecise, with evidentiary criteria supported by gender stereotypes, which historically re-victimize those who report, so the regulation is insufficient to stop sexual abuse.
The opinion of that initiative, presented on November 25 by Michel Camarena herself; the president of the Senate, Laura Itzel Castillo, and the deputy Anaís Burgos, was approved unanimously last Friday by the Gender Equality and Legislative Studies commissions. The latter is headed by the Morenoist Manuel Huerta Ladrón de Guevara.
Micher stressed that the reform is based on an “alarming reality”, which is the fact that sexual violence disproportionately affects women, girls, boys and adolescents, and there are high levels of impunity, which is why the criminal offense was updated, in order to allow protection more in line with the real ways in which this violence is manifested.
The new text of article 260 establishes that “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 to be touching, caressing, body rubbing, exhibitions or explicit sexual representations” and 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 sexual act.
The legislator added that measures to repair damage and guarantees of non-repetition are also incorporated. The crime of sexual abuse includes sentences of three to seven years, but with aggravating factors, such as the fact that the aggressor is a relative of the victim, someone they trust or their superior at work.
