In a joint note, the Ministries of Human Rights, Citizenship and Women condemned the decision of the 9th Specialized Criminal Chamber of the Court of Justice of Minas Gerais which acquitted, by majority vote, a 35-year-old man who had been convicted of the rape of a 12-year-old girl. They lived together as a couple in the city of Indianópolis, in the Triângulo Mineiro.
The man left the prison system on February 13, after the court granted a release permit, according to information from the State Secretariat of Justice and Public Security (Sejusp).
The Penal Code establishes that sexual intercourse or the practice of another libidinous act with a minor under the age of 14 constitutes rape of a vulnerable person. The Superior Court of Justice (STJ) had already established the understanding that the victim’s consent, any previous sexual experience or the existence of a romantic relationship do not rule out the occurrence of the crime.
The ministries emphasized that “Brazil adopts the logic of full protection of children and adolescents, according to the Federal Constitution and the Statute of Children and Adolescents (ECA). When the family does not ensure this protection — especially in cases of sexual violence —, it is up to the State and society, including the three Powers, to protect the rights of the child, and it is not permissible for family consent or self-declaration of marital ties to be used to relativize violations.”
In the assessment of the two departments, Brazil repudiates child marriage, “a practice that constitutes a serious violation of human rights and deepens gender, racial and class inequalities”.
They also highlighted that, in 2022, more than 34 thousand children aged 10 to 14 lived in conjugal unions in Brazil, mostly girls, black or mixed race, “concentrated in historically more vulnerable regions”.
The note reaffirms that Brazil has made international commitments to eliminate this practice, including recent recommendations from the Committee of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (Cedaw) that the minimum age for marriage be set at 18 years old, without exceptions. And he concludes: “Judicial decisions, including within the scope of the Courts of Justice, must be aligned with this normative framework, ensuring that no interpretation weakens the full protection of children and adolescents”.
Federal deputy Erika Hilton (Psol-SP) reported the case to the National Council of Justice (CNJ), which opened an investigation to investigate the decision taken by the TJ of Minas.
Public Ministry of Minas
Also in a note, the MPMG announced that it will adopt the appropriate procedural measures.
“The national legal system and the consolidated jurisprudence of the Superior Court of Justice […] establish the absolute presumption of vulnerability for children and adolescents under 14 years of age. This normative guideline aims to protect the healthy development and sexual dignity of this population, treating them as unavailable legal assets, which override any interpretation based on the alleged consent of the victim or family consent”.
The Public Defender’s Office of Minas Gerais, which appealed against the man’s first instance conviction, guaranteed that it “acted to guarantee the defendant’s right to full defense” in compliance with its constitutional duties.
The case
A 35-year-old man had been sentenced to nine years in prison for the rape of a 12-year-old girl, with whom he lived as her husband. The girl’s mother, accused of connivance with the crime, was also acquitted.
The sentence resulted from a complaint made by the Public Ministry of Minas Gerais (MPMG) in April 2024 against the suspect and the girl’s mother, aged 12 at the time, for rape of a vulnerable person due to the “practice of carnal union and libidinous acts” against the victim.
The 9th Criminal Chamber, however, understood that the defendant and the victim had a consensual emotional bond and overturned the first instance sentence. The investigations carried out initially concluded that the pre-teen girl lived with the man, with her mother’s permission, and had dropped out of school. With police records for crimes of homicide and drug trafficking, the man was arrested red-handed on April 8, 2024, in the company of the girl, with whom he admitted he had sexual relations.
In an excerpt from the decision, the rapporteur Magid Nauef Láuar assessed that “the relationship maintained between the accused and the minor did not result from an act of violence, coercion, fraud or embarrassment, but rather from a consensual emotional bond, with prior acquiescence from the victim’s parents and experienced in the eyes of everyone”.
