Article 260 Federal Criminal Code

Commits the crime of sexual abuse whoever without the consent of the victim and without the purpose of arriving at copulation, carries out in the public or private sphere any act of a sexual nature, obliges her to observe it, or makes her execute it on herself, for a third party or for the active subject himself.

Sexual abuse is also considered when the victim is obliged to exhibit her body. Touching, caresses, corporal rubbings, exhibitions or explicit sexual representations are understood as a sexual act. For the purposes of this Article, there is no consent when the will of the person has been annulled or vitiated by violence, intimidation, deceit, threat, abuse of confidence, authority or situation of vulnerability. Consent may not be presumed from the silence, the passivity or the lack of physical resistance of the victim.

On anyone who commits this crime, a sanction of from three to seven years of imprisonment and fine of from two hundred to five hundred times the daily value of the Measurement and Updating Unit (Unidad de Medida y Actualización) shall be imposed. Likewise, the obligation to attend re-educational workshops with a gender perspective and non-violence against women and/or to render social service in favor of the State or of public charity institutions shall be imposed in order to favor measures of non-repetition and promote a cultural change in favor of substantive equality between women and men. The compliance of this obligation is of special relevance for the admissibility and continuity of the conditional suspension.

This crime shall be prosecuted ex officio.

The penalties provided in this Article shall be increased by one third when the crime is committed in any of the following circumstances:

I.- With physical, psychological or moral violence;

II.- By two or more persons;

III.- In a depopulated, solitary or little accessible place;

IV.- When there exists or has existed between the aggressor and the victim a relation of confidence, sentimental, of kinship by consanguinity or affinity, labor, educational, teaching, of sports, artistic or religious formation;

V.- When it is carried out by a person who has the victim under his responsibility of custody, keeping, guardianship, care or economic dependence;

VI.- When it is carried out by a public official taking advantage of his employment, position or commission. In this case, in addition to the prison penalty, the aggressor person shall be removed from the position, employment or commission and disqualified for the exercise of public service for a term equal to that of the penalty depriving of liberty without prejudice to other administrative or civil sanctions that correspond;

VII.- When it is carried out by a professional taking advantage of his employment, position or commission. In this case, in addition to the prison penalty, the aggressor person shall be disqualified for the exercise of the profession for a term equal to that of the penalty depriving of liberty without prejudice to other administrative or civil sanctions;

VIII.- When it is carried out by a minister of worship taking advantage of his position, function or commission;

IX.- When the victim is under the effects of alcohol, drugs, narcotics or other substances that affect her will or discernment;

X.- When the victim is in a state of pregnancy or puerperium;

XI.- When it is committed against persons for their sexual orientation, gender identity or gender expression, and

XII.- When the victim is in a state of defenselessness.

Additional to the sanctions established in this Article, the active subject shall be imposed the compliance of the integral reparation of damage, which must include, among other measures established in the General Law on Victims (Ley General de Víctimas), specialized psychological attention for the victim, until her total recovery.