Mexico: Bureaucrats ask for sexual favors in exchange for their services

The level of corruption of public servants in the country ceased to be only a matter of money and also became a sexual issue, because, according to the Attorney General’s Office (FGR), now there is “sexual bribery” since federal, state, and municipal workers “tend to ask users for sexual favors to carry out their duties.”

On Thursday, March 11th, the Office of the Attorney General of the Republic delivered to the Senate the Annual Report of Activities and Results in 2021 of the Office of the Special Prosecutor in Combating Corruption, in which it is observed that there are 1,688 investigation folders initiated by complaints filed, mainly by the Secretariat of the Public Function, the government of the State of Veracruz, the ISSSTE, the Superior Audit of the Federation and the Financial Intelligence Unit.

The institutions that have the highest number of public servants identified for acts of corruption are the ISSSTE, with 96; Pemex, with 70; the SAT with 36; the Federal Police, with 32; the IMSS with 29 accusations and the only city council that appears in the list of 20 institutions and government areas with the highest number of complaints is that of Macuspana, Tabasco (president Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s hometown), with 17 accusations.

Closeup of boss putting hand over legs of blonde secretary in the office. Sexual harassment at work concept. (Photo: Derek Smith Law Group)

The Prosecutor’s Office reports the period from January 1, 2020, to this month of March and details that, thanks to alternative dispute resolution mechanisms, two million 747 thousand 223 pesos were recovered.

The main crimes for which public servants are accused of corruption are embezzlement, which has generated 390 investigation files; illicit use of attributions and powers, with 218 investigation folders; illicit exercise of public service, with 200 folders; illicit enrichment, with 102 folders and bribery, with 76 investigation folders initiated.

But the Prosecutor’s Office asks the Senate to legislate eight reforms to the Federal Criminal Code “to improve the investigation of crimes related to acts of corruption” and reveals that now there is a modality of corruption known as “sexual bribery.”

“In the crime of bribery, sexual bribery in now included, since it is only limited to requesting or offering money. Public servants, in gender violence, usually ask users for sexual favors to carry out their functions or provide them with a service or input that by law corresponds to them. Sexual bribery is a criminal type aggravated from the crime of simple bribery, ”the Prosecutor's Office said.

Another of the reforms that FGE calls for is “to extend the crime of illicit perception for those companies that have resources derived from social programs, for the sole fact that they have already been delivered to an individual so that it can be continued as a crime of corruption and not as a patrimonial crime ”.

Source: Excelsior

Mexico Daily Post