The acquittal of a 35-year-old man accused of raping a 12-year-old girl, in Minas Gerais, demonstrates resistance on the part of the Judiciary in applying federal legislation. This is the opinion of the former national secretary for the Rights of Children and Adolescents, lawyer Ariel de Castro Alves.
“It is important to remember that this is not the first decision [judicial] of this type, in the country”, said Alves when interviewed, this Monday (23), on the program Brazil Magazinebroadcast by National Radioin a network with radio stations in the Brazilian Communication Company (EBC) and partners.
With decades of experience in promoting human rights and member of the Commission for the Defense of the Rights of Children and Adolescents of the Federal Council of the Brazilian Bar Association (OAB), Alves says he knows almost a dozen sentences, including from the Federal Supreme Court (STF) and the Superior Court of Justice (STJ), which ended up acquitting those accused of rape of a vulnerable person with the justification that the act carried out with children under 14 years of age would have been “consensual”.
In Brazil, the Penal Code establishes that sexual intercourse or the practice of libidinous acts with minors under the age of 14 constitutes rape of a vulnerable person.
The STJ itself published, in 2017, the Summary 593 which establishes that, in these circumstances, the “possible consent of the victim” or even the fact that she had some type of romantic relationship with the rapist or previous sexual experience is irrelevant.
“But there is jurisprudence [decisões] that makes this distinction, which means that judges, depending on the peculiarities of the case, of the process they are judging, end up not complying with the legislation”, said Alves.
The former secretary adds that there are cases in which judges claimed to take into account the fact that, in addition to an alleged romantic involvement, the accused had children with the young woman, and that, therefore, sentencing him to prison for a crime considered heinous would also punish the child.
“[Esses magistrados] understood to apply this distinction, [considerando] be peculiar cases, recognizing the [eventual] loving, sexual involvement between the accused and the victims; taking into account whether there was the consent of the family and the formation of a family nucleus, as, then, [para esses juízes]it would not be the case to apply any punishment, precisely so as not to harm the child.”
According to Alves, most of the time, these cases involve young adults and minors, whose age difference is not that great.
“But of course, these decisions end up generating dangerous precedents, as they end up legitimizing pedophilia and generating a kind of license or carte blanche for the rape of vulnerable people, for sexual violence against children and adolescents, which is one of the most serious problems in Brazil”, warned Castro.
The lawyer cited data from the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE), according to which There are around 34 thousand children and adolescents between ten and 14 years of age married in Brazil, even though this practice is prohibited for children under 18 – unless emancipated, from the age of 16.
“Many get married to escape poverty, with the encouragement of their parents and guardians. And we know that this will perpetuate the cycle of poverty, child labor, domestic violence […] Not to say that, every six minutes, a person is raped in Brazil and that 77% of these victims are children and adolescents under 14 years of age.”
For the former national secretary, one way to combat this practice would be to carry out awareness campaigns and debate the topic in schools“so that children and adolescents who are suffering abuse, violence, exploitation” understand the situation and know how to report it.
Understand the case
In November 2025, the 1st Criminal and Child and Youth Court of the District of Araguari sentenced a 35-year-old man to nine years and four months in prison for living together and having sexual relations with a girl who, at the time the process began (2024), was 12 years old.
Three months after his conviction, in February this year, the 9th Criminal Chamber of the Court of Justice of Minas Gerais (TJ-MG) acquitted him on the understanding that the defendant and the girl had a consensual emotional bond.
The 9th Chamber also cleared the girl’s mother, whom the 1st Criminal Court had convicted of conniving in the crime of rape of a vulnerable person, based on the complaint that the Public Ministry of Minas Gerais presented in April 2024.
According to the TJMG decision, the defendant and the girl lived together, as a couple, in the city of Indianópolis, in the Triângulo Mineiro, with the authorization of the girl’s mother, who did not oppose her abandoning her studies.
The fact that the man had been with the police for crimes of homicide and drug trafficking also did not weigh against him.
Consensus
When acquitting the accused, the reporting judge Magid Nauef Láuar assessed that “the relationship 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”.
When it became public in recent days, the decision caused strong reactions, mobilizing public opinion.
In a note, the ministries of Human Rights and Citizenship and Women criticized the sentence of the 9th Criminal Chamber, highlighting that it is up to the State and society to protect the rights of children, “it is not permissible for family consent or self-declaration of marital ties to be used to relativize violations”.
This Saturday (21), the national inspector of justice, minister Mauro Campbell, initiated, on his own initiative, a request for action, determining that the TJMG and judge Magid Nauef Láuar provide information on the case within five days.
As it involves a minor, the process will be carried out in secret.
