The Court of Justice of Minas Gerais acquitted, by majority vote, a 35-year-old man accused of rape of a 12-year-old girl.
The case took place in Indianópolis, a city of just over 7 thousand inhabitants in the Minas Gerais triangle.
According to the ruling, the sexual relations between the two were known to the girl’s mother and occurred consensually, without violence, forming the formation of a family nucleus.
The victim’s mother was also acquitted.
The Court recognized the material atypicality of the case, that is, it understood that the situation is an exception and that the law is not applied to this case.
The Court considered that the defendant’s conviction would be worse for the rape victim than an acquittal.
Under the Penal Code, the case would be classified as rape of a vulnerable person. Article 217-A typifies the crime of having carnal union or carrying out another libidinous act with a minor under 14 years of age or with a person who, due to illness or mental disability, does not have the necessary discernment, or who, for any other reason, cannot offer resistance.
The penalty for rape of a vulnerable person is 10 to 18 years in prison. The man, who was in prison, was released last week.
In an interview with Tarde Bandnews with Paula Valdez, Luciana Temer, president of Instituto Liberta, which faces sexual violence against children and adolescents, criticized the TJ-MG decision.
“We have a law that says rape and sexual exploitation in Brazil, but these issues are so naturalized. We have to think as a society, how we end up naturalizing them and, mainly, with the most vulnerable people, the poorest girls”.
The appeal’s rapporteur, judge Magid Nauef Láuar, accepted the defense’s arguments, claiming that it is a case of distinction, a practice in which the judge takes into account specific characteristics of the process to decide differently from the law.
Judge Walner Barbosa Milward de Azevedo fully followed the rapporteur’s vote. The only vote against the acquittal was that of judge Kárin Emmerich, who understood that the vulnerability of children under 14 years of age is absolute.
Data from the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE) released in November 2025 revealed an alarming picture: 34,202 children and adolescents, between 10 and 14 years old, live in a conjugal union in the country.
Among these 34 thousand children and adolescents, 86.6% live in a consensual union. The predominance of this type of relationship is repeated among teenagers aged 15 to 19, a group that brings together 982,335 people in consensual unions, equivalent to 88.9% of marriages in this age group.
Adding the two youngest groups, the country has 1,139,551 children and adolescents aged 10 to 19 living as married couples, the majority in informal unions, states the IBGE.
In Brazil, the legal minimum age for civil marriage is 16 years old, with parental or guardian authorization, and 18 years old without such authorization. Unions with minors under 16 have been strictly prohibited since 2019.
Luciana Temer also criticized how these crimes are relativized.
“I think the message has been given and has been in force for a long time. In 2024 there was a decision by the STJ, in a case exactly like the one in Minas Gerais. We are talking about one from a higher court. We realize that historically this crime has been relativized.”
The Public Ministry of the state of Minas Gerais informed that it will analyze the decision to adopt the appropriate procedural measures and may appeal. The national network of guardianship counselors highlighted that it will file a petition to try to change the court’s decision.
