A child without legal representation faces the prospect of navigating pregnancy alone
No Brasil, o Senado votou para anular uma resolução do Conanda que garantia representação jurídica e suporte contínuo a crianças e adolescentes vítimas de violência sexual que buscavam o aborto legal. O decreto, conduzido pela senadora Damares Alves e originado pela deputada Chris Tonietto, avança para promulgação em meio a alertas do Ministério dos Direitos Humanos sobre retrocessos na proteção infantil. O que está em jogo é uma tensão antiga e dolorosa entre a autoridade familiar e a autonomia da criança traumatizada — e o Estado, ao desmantelar as salvaguardas existentes, deixa em aberto a pergunta sobre quem, afinal, fala por ela.
- Crianças vítimas de estupro que buscam o aborto legal perdem as garantias institucionais que as protegiam de decisões impostas por responsáveis legais contra sua própria vontade.
- O decreto foi aprovado no Senado horas depois de passar pela Comissão de Direitos Humanos, sinalizando uma articulação legislativa rápida e deliberada para reverter as proteções do Conanda.
- O Ministério dos Direitos Humanos havia alertado, desde novembro de 2025, que a suspensão da resolução representaria um retrocesso grave — mas o aviso não foi suficiente para conter o avanço do decreto.
- Damares Alves argumentou que a resolução extrapolava a competência regulatória do Conanda e enfraquecia o papel da família, reencadrando a proteção infantil como questão de autoridade parental, não de autonomia da criança.
- O Brasil mantém o aborto legal em apenas três situações, e o vácuo deixado pelo decreto ameaça tornar ainda mais difícil o acesso a um direito que já era restrito e cercado de obstáculos práticos.
Na terça-feira, 2 de junho, o Senado brasileiro aprovou um decreto legislativo que anula uma resolução do Conanda — o Conselho Nacional dos Direitos da Criança e do Adolescente — voltada à proteção de menores vítimas de violência sexual que buscam o aborto legal. O decreto, de autoria da deputada federal Chris Tonietto, foi conduzido no Senado pela senadora Damares Alves e segue agora para promulgação.
A resolução anulada havia criado um conjunto de garantias concretas: que a criança ou adolescente teria direito a um defensor público designado para acompanhá-la durante todo o processo, inclusive como curador especial nos casos em que sua vontade entrasse em conflito com a de seus responsáveis legais. Era, em essência, uma tentativa de assegurar que uma criança traumatizada não fosse silenciada nem abandonada institucionalmente no momento mais vulnerável de sua vida.
Em novembro de 2025, o Ministério dos Direitos Humanos já havia alertado que suspender essas proteções representaria um retrocesso sério, enfraquecendo os sistemas de cuidado especializado que a legislação vigente pretendia garantir. O alerta não impediu o avanço do decreto.
No debate na Comissão de Direitos Humanos, Damares Alves argumentou que a resolução extrapolava a competência do Conanda e que tais matérias exigiriam legislação formal. Ela sustentou ainda que o mecanismo criado reduzia o papel da família e das redes tradicionais de proteção — uma leitura que reposiciona a questão como disputa de autoridade, não de salvaguarda da criança.
A divisão é profunda: de um lado, a compreensão de que uma criança violentada precisa de voz própria e proteção jurídica independente; do outro, a defesa de que decisões dessa natureza pertencem ao âmbito familiar. O Senado optou por desmontar o arranjo que tentava equilibrar essas duas exigências — e deixou sem resposta a pergunta sobre como, na ausência dessas garantias, uma criança vítima de estupro será de fato protegida.
On Tuesday, June 2nd, Brazil's Senate voted to strike down a set of protections designed to help children and adolescents who had been sexually assaulted. The measure—a legislative decree that nullifies a resolution from the National Council for the Rights of Children and Adolescents, known as Conanda—now moves toward formal promulgation. The resolution being dismantled had established a framework to ensure swift, comprehensive care for minors seeking legal abortion following rape, including guarantees of legal representation and continuous support throughout the process.
The decree originated with federal deputy Chris Tonietto of the Liberal Party in Rio de Janeiro. Senator Damares Alves, also of the Republican Party and representing the Federal District, shepherded it through the legislative process. The Senate's approval came just hours after the same measure had cleared the Human Rights Commission, suggesting momentum behind the effort to overturn the Conanda resolution.
Brazil's abortion law is narrow. The procedure is permitted in exactly three circumstances: pregnancies resulting from rape, pregnancies that pose a threat to the pregnant person's life, or pregnancies involving a fetus with anencephaly. Within those legal boundaries, the Conanda resolution had attempted to create a protective structure. It specified that a child or adolescent facing an abortion decision would have the right to a public defender assigned to represent them throughout the entire process—including serving as a special guardian if the minor's own wishes conflicted with what their legal guardians wanted. The resolution aimed at ensuring that a traumatized child would not be forced into a decision against her will by a parent or guardian, nor left without professional legal support.
In November 2025, the Ministry of Human Rights had warned that suspending this resolution would constitute a serious setback for child protection in Brazil. The ministry argued that eliminating these safeguards would restrict access to fundamental rights and would weaken the specialized care systems that existing laws were meant to provide. The concern was concrete: without these protections, a child victim of sexual violence would face the prospect of navigating a pregnancy and abortion decision with fewer legal guarantees and less institutional support.
During the Human Rights Commission debate, Damares Alves offered a different framing. She contended that the Conanda resolution exceeded the council's regulatory authority and that such matters required formal legislation, not administrative guidance. She argued further that the resolution, rather than strengthening the bonds between family, protective networks, and law enforcement, actually created mechanisms that diminished parental involvement and reduced reliance on traditional child protection tools. In her view, the resolution tilted the balance away from family authority in ways that were counterproductive to the child's own protection.
The philosophical divide is stark. One side sees the Conanda resolution as essential guardrails—ensuring that a child who has been raped has an independent voice and professional legal protection when deciding whether to continue a pregnancy. The other side views it as an overreach that weakens parental authority and family involvement in decisions that should remain within the family's domain. What remains unresolved is how those two concerns—protecting a child's autonomy after trauma, and preserving family authority—are meant to coexist when they collide. The Senate has now chosen to eliminate the framework that attempted to balance them, leaving the question of how minors seeking legal abortion will be protected in its absence.
Citações Notáveis
The suspension of this norm represents a grave setback in child protection, restricts access to fundamental rights, and weakens specialized care systems established by law— Ministry of Human Rights, November 2025
The resolution creates mechanisms that diminish parental participation and reduce reliance on traditional child protection tools— Senator Damares Alves
A Conversa do Hearth Outra perspectiva sobre a história
Why did the Senate move to strike down this particular resolution now, in 2026?
The resolution had been in place and working. What changed was political will. The people pushing to overturn it see it as an overreach by an administrative body—they want abortion decisions, even for raped children, to flow through family structures and traditional channels, not through independent legal representation.
But if a child's parents don't want her to have an abortion, and she does, what happens under the old system?
That's exactly what the Conanda resolution tried to solve. It said a public defender would represent the child's own wishes, separate from the parents' wishes. Now that's gone. The child is back in the position of having to convince her family, or navigate the system alone.
Is there a legal vacuum now, or does some other protection exist?
That's the real question. Brazil's abortion law itself hasn't changed—rape victims can still legally abort. But the procedural guardrails, the guarantee of representation, the framework for handling conflicts between child and parent—those are gone. What replaces them is unclear.
Who benefits from this change?
Politically, it satisfies a conservative coalition that views parental authority as paramount and sees administrative protections for minors as threats to family structure. Practically, it's harder to say anyone benefits. The children affected certainly don't.
Will this actually prevent abortions, or just make them harder to access?
Harder to access, almost certainly. A child without legal representation, without a clear pathway, without institutional support—she's more likely to delay, to be talked out of it, to give up. The effect is restriction without formally restricting the law.