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By THE PULSE NEWS MEXICO STAFF

Mexico’s Public Administration Secretariat (SFP) published its new Sexual Code of Professional Ethics in the Official Gazette of the Federation (DOF), expressly prohibiting all acts of sexual harassment, flirtation and public displays of affection by federal public servants.

The new Code of Ethics specifically prohibits “the carrying out or tolerance of acts of sexual harassment or sexual abuse, regardless of the sex, gender identity, sexual characteristics or orientation of the persons involved in such cases.”

It also prohibits public servants from: “making sexually suggestive signals with the hands or through body movements; having physical contact that is suggestive or of a sexual nature, such as touching, hugging, kissing, groping or pulling; giving or receiving gifts, giving inappropriate or noticeably different preferences or openly or indirectly expressing sexual interest in a person; carrying out dominant, aggressive, intimidating or hostile conduct toward a person so that they submit to their sexual desires or interests, or to that of one or more other persons; spying on a person in their privacy, or while they change their clothes or are in the bathroom; conditioning a job or promotion, their permanence in it or its conditions in exchange for a sexual favor; and forcing someone to carry out activities that do not correspond to their work or other disciplinary measures in retaliation for rejecting propositions of a sexual nature.”

The code also states that public servants may not “condition the provision of a procedure, public service or evaluation in exchange for engagement in a an act of a sexual nature” or “express comments, ridicule, compliments or jokes toward another person regarding their appearance or anatomy with a sexual connotation, either in person or through any means of communication.”

The elaborate Code of Ethics likewise states that public servants must “preserve the institutional image” even when they are not at work, and prohibits them from “blocking their followers or contacts on social networks.”