For the first time, the Ministry of Public Administration will establish rules against harassment and sexual and labor harassment in its Code of Ethics. The list of behaviors to avoid by public servants includes everything from making compliments and innuendoes of a sexual nature to spying on other people in the toilets. Federal officials must adhere to the regulations that will come into force after its publication in the coming days in the Official Gazette of the Federation.
The new code prohibits “carrying out or tolerating acts of sexual harassment or sexual harassment, regardless of the sex, gender identity or expression, sexual characteristics or orientation, of the people involved in such cases.” To do this, officials must avoid behaviors such as “having suggestive physical contact or of a sexual nature, such as touching, hugging, kissing, groping, pulling,” indicates the draft that is currently in the process of being analyzed by the Commission for Regulatory Improvement (Conamer ) of the Segob, as published this Monday on its platform.
Public servants must also avoid “giving gifts, giving undue or notoriously different preferences or openly or indirectly expressing sexual interest in a person,” it says. Nor will it be allowed to “carry out dominant, aggressive, intimidating or hostile conduct towards a person so that they submit to their sexual desires or interests, or that of one or more other persons”, nor “spy on a person in their privacy, or while she changes her clothes or is in the toilet”.
The agreement also restricts “express comments, ridicule, compliments or jokes towards another person regarding appearance or anatomy with sexual connotation, either in person or through any means of communication.” Officials will also not be able to “make suggestive comments, jokes or jokes regarding their sexual life or that of another person, either in person or through any means of communication”, or “display or send through any means of communication, posters, calendars , messages, photographs, audios, videos, illustrations or objects with images or structures of a sexual nature, not desired or requested by the recipient”. As well as spreading rumors or any type of information about a person’s sexual life, expressing insults or humiliations of a sexual nature, or deliberately showing private parts of the body to one or more people.
In addition, it condemns the act of “conditioning the obtaining of a job or promotion, their permanence in it or the conditions thereof in exchange for accepting conduct of a sexual nature; forcing them to carry out activities that are not related to their work or other disciplinary measures in retaliation for rejecting propositions of a sexual nature; condition the provision of a procedure, public service or evaluation in exchange for the user, student or applicant agreeing to engage in sexual conduct of any nature”.
This is the first time that the federal government includes a definition and a list of behaviors related to harassment and sexual and labor harassment to be avoided by officials. The new regulation emphasizes human rights, gender equality, “as well as behaviors that most harm people’s dignity, such as sexual harassment and bullying, workplace harassment and discrimination,” he highlights.
As background, in February 2020 the first Protocol for the Prevention, Attention and Punishment of Sexual Harassment and Sexual Harassment of the Ministry of Public Administration came into force, at that time in charge of Irma Eréndira Saldoval. A month later, the agency amended its Code of Ethics to make explicit that sexual harassment and harassment are “unacceptable” in the public service, but did not include a description or give more details about these acts that go against human rights. Previously, on February 11 of that year, the newspaper Reform revealed that Roberto Valdovinos, former head of the Institute for Mexicans Abroad (IME), was dismissed after complaints against him for workplace harassment.
This Monday, the appointment of Pedro Salmerón as ambassador to Panama has once again raised questions about the mechanisms for denouncing aggressors and doing justice for victims of sexual violence in Mexico. Salmerón has been accused by several students and former students of ITAM, a private university from which he resigned in 2019 after being accused of sexual harassment by multiple students during the movement of complaints of harassment and sexual violence Me Too. The official was also denounced by eight colleagues from his party, Morena, for sexual harassment. However, the historian has denied all the accusations and his appointment has been defended even by President Andrés Manuel López Obrador.
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