Adopted in 2010, the Parental Alienation Act provides that a parent who feels that his or her child is being used by the spouse as an instrument to harm him / her may enter court.
However, experts and mothers accused of being alienators, who were heard by our editors, dispute the way the law has been applied in Brazilian courts.
"I've come to the point where it's no use hiding. I've been there for a year and nine months without any contact with my son, I do not even know where my son is." Justice prevented me from having any kind of contact with him the claim that I have mental problems. "
Rebekah's reason for being estranged and having contact with her son was that she had been charged as an alienator after the boy reported to her that he was being sexually abused by his ex-husband's father.
"When he was almost two years old, he began to report a few pranks that his father made with him. On that occasion, I was already in the process of divorce, I told my father what the son had said and he had an extremely aggressive reaction to physically assault me, "he told the newsroom.
Rebecca sought a forensic psychologist who gave a report that the boy was undergoing a process of desensitization, that is, that the father was acting in a way to make the child naturalize pedophile behavior, but had not yet had an abuse itself. She even tried to seek justice, but got no response.
During the July vacation, the son spent fifteen days with each parent. Back from the time she stayed with her father, Rebecca said he had had anal exfoliation and told her what had happened. "He told her everything, what happened, how he had to stay, what position his father was hurting him, that he was crying, that he asked to stop and his father would not stop."
Shortly thereafter, she sought the tutelary council that sent her to a police station. When Rebeca arrived at the scene, she said that the delegate was about to begin her activities. "The delegate summoned the forensic psychologist who had evaluated my son, called the school my son was studying because the school had also witnessed that my son was exhibiting erotic behavior that was not commonly presented by children his age."
"It happened on a Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. When it was Saturday, my house was invaded by police officers, with a gun in hand, they broke into my door and entered my house. .
Using the Parental Alienation Act (Law 12.318 / 2010), the ex-husband accused Rebecca of inducing her son to harm his relationship with his father. Even before the investigation was completed in Criminal Justice, the lawsuit filed by the father went to the Family Court, there it was quickly concluded and Rebecca was banned from seeing her son ever since.
Origin of the concept
The concept of parental alienation was created in the 1980s by American psychiatrist Richard Gardner. He published a book called "The Parental Alienation Syndrome: A Guide for Mental Health and Legal Professionals". There he writes the most controversial point of his theory. According to Gardner, parents have the power to "implant false memories" in children.
Gardner's theory was not accepted by the medical community of the United States at the time. Both the American Psychiatric Association and the American Medical Association did not recognize parental alienation as a syndrome.
The analyst Martins, who published the book "Syndrome of the parental alienation: A new theme in family judgments", notes in an interview to the editorial staff that accusations of abuse are always and that it is necessary to analyze each individual case, but explains that the concept of parental alienation has not been scientifically proven.
"This theory is not supported, it has never been scientifically demonstrated, it does not appear in the manuals of psychiatry that are used by professionals in the area to identify clinical pathologies, but this law strangely passes quickly in Brazil, despite some attempts at criticism," he says.
A survey made by Analícia Martins from 400 judgments involving the expression "parental alienation" shows that cases in which the background is a report of abuse are minority in the Brazilian Judiciary.
"In fact, we have a lot of situations that appeared in these cases, most of them did not mention the mention of child sexual abuse, that is, it seems to me that it can actually be used, but you can not say that this is most cases of conjugal litigation, "explains the teacher.
Although a minority, Rebeca's story is not the only one, she joined a group of 80 other mothers who suffered similar alienation processes. One of them is Joana *, who was suspected of abuse when the child was 4 years old.
"She began to present a series of symptoms, could not hold feces, returned to urinate in bed, felt the people in the street, took off her clothes and showed the genitals to anyone," he says.
The child went on to reveal that he was being abused by a relative of Joana, but then he also talked about it in therapy.
"She was already doing therapy because of these strange behaviors, and in therapy she revealed that she was abused by her father. She reported since she had to attend his sexual relationship and even participate," he told the newsroom.
Joan is now forced to see her son on assisted visits inside a courtroom. "At the first hearing I had in court, it was said that I was making up and did not want to investigate the abuse. While I made a complaint to the police the parent made a complaint in the Family Court and it was in the Family Court that I was convicted and today I am considered alienating. "
Joana already had reports from two other private professionals who also confirmed the abuse.
In an interview with Sputnik Brasil, Cristiana Cordeiro, a judge of the Court of Rio de Janeiro, sometimes the judges in Brazil end up dispensing a technical opinion made by a specialist, besides, according to her, the Brazilian Justice has a macho trait to label the mothers as having psychological disorders.
"We have a certain culture in Brazil that a judge ends up in many situations ending up dispensing a more technical opinion, because in many places in Brazil the judges do not have a complete team with psychologists, social workers who can give him a bigger foundation about what is really happening in the dynamics of that family.Then when the judge, or because he is armed with this knowledge that he does not have or because he does not really have anyone to turn to, he ends up assuming the role of defining what is what "he said.
The law was passed in Brazil in 2010 after a strong campaign by parent associations. Analdino Rodrigues Paulino, president of Apase (Association of Separate Parents and Mothers), one of the main organizations that fought for the approval of the law, defends the law as a way to protect the men after separation processes.
"We have in Brazil dozens of laws protecting women and damaging men.It is very dangerous for men to be involved with a woman who is inconsequential.Whatever she says against you, you are going to respond judicially for the complaint she made "he says.
According to him, it is very common in terms of relationships that women enter with lawsuits to harm men. "Usually who is exchanged for another does not forgive, hence the wrath of women, for example, to make a false accusation of abuse, a false accusation of Maria da Penha."
Apase has a Facebook page with 5,000 followers and even produced a documentary to show the reasons why the NGO finds it important to approve the Parental Alienation Act.
"That's why we fight to make the Law of Shared Guidance and Parental Alienation. To guarantee the minimum right for parents not only have to pay the pension and can not see the child," he said.
Public defender Paula Sant'Anna Machado de Souza, who is the assistant coordinator of the Center for the Promotion and Defense of Women's Rights (NUDEM), of the Public Defender of São Paulo, disagrees with this position and says that this is not what has been observed in Brazilian courts.
In an interview for our newsroom, she said that there were other legal provisions, such as the Child and Adolescent Statute (ECA), that make the Parental Alienation Act not necessary.
"If the child is suffering, if it is in a situation of family conflict, we have, for example, the ECA statute that guarantees protective measures." So we ask ourselves who is this law of alienation? What is the gender that this law is seeking to do? Are these results of abrupt reversal also not a violence against these children? What made us think that this law is not being thought in a way that guarantees the child's own well-being? " .
Who is the alienated?
Paula Sant'Anna Machado de Souza sees that there is even a distortion of the very concept of parental alienation.
"Because we are often confused, in theory, the person who suffers from alienation is the child, not the father or the mother. The child has to suffer from it. Actually, what we feel is that there is a misrepresentation of the very concept of alienation, "he said.
Another problem with the law brought by specialists is the fact that not always a person accusing the spouse of abuse means that she is alienating the child. Many times she just wants an investigation done.
The public prosecutor of Rio de Janeiro, Beatrice Marinho, coordinator of the book "Psychology in Legal Practice - Child in Focus", says that there are in fact many false reports of sexual abuse, especially the so-called incestogenic abuse, when the accused is the father or the mother but that not necessarily the fact that one of the parties make a complaint means that the child is being alienated.
"When a report of abuse happens, you have these two alternatives, either being true or being false." Now you do not want to understand that it means that it has been abused or it is alienated because sometimes there are other possibilities, there are people who make these denunciations , although false, they do not intend to alienate, but intend to protect, because who is denouncing really have reasons to believe in that abuse, which I think is a failure of Justice. false denunciation of an alienation, "he explains.
It is precisely the desire for the investigation of a suspected abuse that led Renata * to be accused of alienating and losing custody of her son. "The only reason I lost custody of this child was to have fulfilled our duty as a mother to report a suspicion, a clue or abuse."
She said that her son had strange behavior every time he returned from visits with his father. He was about 3 years old and complained of anus pains and said that his father committed abuse when the two of them showered together. For two years, Renata can only see her son in a room, supervised by law enforcement officials every 15 days.
"My son came back from his father's visit crying, vomiting, his eyes dilated and then when I asked if his father had moved him he said yes and it hurt a lot. Then my son regretted saying and put his hand on I asked him a little more and he told me: 'It hurts like this, first it grows, from there it grows, getting, getting ...' ".
After the conversation, Renata took her son to a specialized hospital and decided to request an investigation of the case. "The father filed a lawsuit asking for custody, saying I was crazy, that I was threatening him and his wife. According to the father, I said I could do something with my son to harm him."
Political clash arrived again in Brasilia
This week, a group of mothers accused of alienators went to Brasilia to denounce to the CPI of Mal Treatments of the Federal Senate the bad applicability of the Law of Parental Alienation. The chairman of the commission, Senator Magno Malta (PR-ES), said that in practice the law may be rather used in favor of abusers.
"We have a maelstrom of mothers living in their despair today, unfortunately people of evil have everywhere, including in the judiciary, which has an absurd sentence of judges recognizing the crime, but giving a sentence favorable to the criminal is a greatness. position on this, "the senator told the Senate.
Magno Malta says the CPI's final report will propose revising the current legislation. Also in progress in the National Congress is Bill 4488/2016, authored by federal deputy Arnaldo Faria de Sá (PP / SP), provides that mothers or fathers accused of parental alienation may be imprisoned for up to three years. The project also punishes those who, in any way, participate directly or indirectly in the actions of the offender.
"The law is of crucial importance in honor of the principle of integral protection, imputing to those who commit any act that aims to destroy ties of affectivity, "he said in 2016.
The draft, however, did not receive a favorable opinion from Mrs Shéridan (PSDB / RR), rapporteur of the proposal, but can still be voted on by the CSSF.
* Names have been changed to preserve the identity of women
