Parental Alienation Claims in Cross-Border Custody Cases in Brazil

The word arrives in the first exchange of lawyers’ letters, and it arrives in both directions. The parent in Brazil says the parent abroad is poisoning the child against Brazil; the parent abroad says the parent in Brazil has moved the child across an ocean to erase them. Each is describing something real, each is reaching for the same label, and in Brazil that label has a statute behind it.

Brazil is one of a handful of countries with a specific law on parental alienation. Lei 12.318/2010 defines the concept, lists examples, gives such cases priority in court, provides for an expert assessment, and hands the judge a set of graduated remedies. Foreign parents and foreign lawyers meet it with surprise, and often with one of two reactions: that it is a weapon to be deployed, or a trap to be feared. It is neither. It is a procedural framework that works on evidence, within limits that matter more in cross-border families than in any other.

The thing this guide turns on is the distinction between a claim and a finding. In a cross-border case the alienation claim is easy to make and hard to place: which court can hear it, what it does inside a Hague Convention return case, what evidence a Brazilian judge will act on, and what a Brazilian order can achieve when the other parent lives abroad. Parents who understand where the claim can and cannot go make better decisions in the months when decisions are still available.

This is educational content prepared by the ZS Advogados Associados team for parents, and for the foreign lawyers advising them, in families divided between Brazil and another country. It builds on our general guide to identifying and addressing parental alienation in Brazil, which explains the statute in a domestic setting, on our service page on cross-border custody in Brazil, and on our guide to the red flags to watch when choosing family-law representation in Brazil, and on our guides to custody orders across borders and the first 72 hours after a child is taken to Brazil, which cover the situations in which alienation is most often alleged.

What does Lei 12.318/2010 actually say?

The statute is short, and worth knowing by article.

Article 2º defines parental alienation as interference with the psychological formation of a child or adolescent, promoted or induced by a parent, a grandparent, or anyone who has the child under their authority, custody, or supervision, so that the child repudiates a parent or so that the establishment or maintenance of bonds with that parent is harmed. Its sole paragraph lists examples, “in addition to acts so declared by the judge or found by an expert”: campaigns to disparage the parent; obstructing the exercise of parental authority; hindering contact; hindering the exercise of the right to regulated family contact; deliberately withholding relevant personal information about the child, including school, medical, and address changes; making false accusations against the parent or the parent’s family to obstruct or hinder contact; and, in item VII, changing the child’s domicile to a distant place, without justification, in order to hinder the child’s contact with the other parent, their family, or grandparents.

Article 3º frames alienation as a violation of the child’s fundamental right to healthy family contact, harmful to affective relations and to the exercise of parental authority.

Article 4º provides that, once there are indications of alienation, on application or on the court’s own motion, the case proceeds with priority, and the judge, after hearing the Ministério Público, adopts the provisional measures needed to preserve the child’s psychological integrity, including ensuring contact with the parent, “or making effective the approximation between them, if appropriate”. Its sole paragraph, in its current wording after Lei 14.340/2022, assures the child and the parent a minimum of assisted contact “in the courthouse where the action is proceeding or in bodies under agreement with the Judiciary” — the words the 2022 reform added — except where a professional designated by the judge attests an imminent risk to the child’s physical or psychological integrity.

Article 5º provides for a psychological or biopsychosocial expert assessment where there are indications of alienation, with a report due within 90 days, extendable by reasoned decision, prepared by a professional or multidisciplinary team with demonstrated expertise, on the basis of interviews, documents, the history of the relationship and the separation, the chronology of incidents, and each parent’s conduct with respect to the child.

Article 6º lists the measures the judge may adopt, cumulatively or not, “according to the seriousness of the case”, without prejudice to civil or criminal liability: (I) a warning; (II) expansion of the contact regime in favour of the alienated parent; (III) a fine; (IV) psychological or biopsychosocial monitoring; (V) a change to joint custody, or its reversal; (VI) the fixing of the child’s domicile as a precautionary measure. Item VII, suspension of parental authority, was revoked by Lei 14.340/2022.

Lei 14.340/2022 also added two paragraphs to article 6º: where an abusive change of address, or the obstruction of family contact, is established, the judge may reverse the obligation to collect the child from or deliver the child to the other parent’s home at each handover (§1º); and psychological or biopsychosocial monitoring must be subject to periodic evaluation, with at least an initial report setting out the assessment and the methodology, and a final report at the end (§2º). Article 5º gained a §4º allowing the judge to appoint an outside expert where the court’s own staff are absent or insufficient.

Article 7º directs that, where joint custody is not viable, custody be attributed to the parent who better enables the child’s contact with the other.

Article 8º, the provision cross-border families should memorise, provides that a change of the child’s domicile is irrelevant to jurisdiction in cases founded on the right to family contact, unless the change resulted from the parents’ agreement or a court decision.

The statute sits on the Código Civil’s custody rules (arts. 1.583–1.590, joint custody as default after Lei 13.058/2014), on the Estatuto da Criança e do Adolescente (best interests; the right to family contact), and, since Lei 14.713/2023, alongside the rule that joint custody is not applied where there is evidence of a risk of domestic or family violence.

Legal basis: Lei nº 12.318, de 26 de agosto de 2010, arts. 2º–8º, as amended by Lei nº 14.340/2022; Código Civil (Lei nº 10.406/2002), arts. 1.583–1.590, as amended by Lei nº 13.058/2014 and Lei nº 14.713/2023; ECA (Lei nº 8.069/1990), arts. 3º–4º and 19.

Why does the statute matter more in cross-border families?

Because three of its features interact with distance in ways that do not arise when both parents live in the same city.

Distance itself appears in the definition. Item VII of article 2º names an unjustified move to a distant place, made to hinder contact, as an example of alienation. A relocation abroad is the most distant move there is. That does not make every relocation alienation, a point developed below, but it means that a parent who moved a child across a border without agreement or authorisation begins any later dispute with the statute’s own words describing their conduct.

The bond is harder to maintain, and easier to lose, across a border. Weekly contact becomes video calls in different time zones; school information arrives in a language the parent may not read; holidays require passports, authorisations, and money. The same conduct, withholding a school report, cancelling a call, “forgetting” a birthday video, does more damage at 8,000 kilometres than at 8. Brazilian judges know this, and the statute’s remedies, especially expanded contact and psychological monitoring, are shaped accordingly.

Jurisdiction is contestable. In a domestic case everyone knows which court hears the claim. In a cross-border case the parent in Brazil may want a Brazilian court, the parent abroad may want their own, and the child’s move may itself be the disputed act. Article 8º was written for exactly this: it denies the moving parent the benefit of the move for jurisdictional purposes, but only where the move was unilateral.

Legal basis: Lei nº 12.318/2010, arts. 2º, VII, 6º, II and IV, and 8º.

Is relocating abroad with the child parental alienation?

The honest answer is that it depends on three things the statute itself identifies, and a fourth that courts add.

• Was the move unilateral? A relocation agreed by the other parent, or authorised by a court, is by definition not “without justification” in the sense of item VII; it is a move the legal system has approved. A move made in secret, or presented as done, is the opposite.
• Was there a real reason? Work, family support, safety, the child’s own needs. Item VII targets moves made to hinder contact; a documented reason that has nothing to do with the other parent weighs against the label, even where contact suffers.
• Was contact preserved? The parent who relocates with a plan, keeps calls regular, sends school reports, facilitates visits, and pays their share of the travel is behaving in the opposite way from the parent the statute describes.
• What happened to the child’s relationship? Courts look at the outcome. A child who, after the move, refuses to speak to the parent left behind, or repeats the moving parent’s grievances, raises the question of induced repudiation that article 2º is about.

Where the move was wrongful in the Hague Convention sense, that is, the child was habitually resident in one contracting state and taken to another in breach of custody rights actually being exercised, the alienation question is secondary to the return question, and the parent left behind should pursue return first. Our guide on custody orders across borders, including relocation and mirror orders sets out how a lawful relocation is structured, which is also the best description of what a non-alienating move looks like.

Legal basis: Lei nº 12.318/2010, art. 2º, parágrafo único, VII; Código Civil, arts. 1.583, §3º, and 1.584, §2º (joint custody; base of residence); 1980 Hague Convention (Decreto nº 3.413/2000), art. 3.

Speak to counsel — the record made around the move decides the label. Proposals, refusals, reasons, and contact arrangements documented before and immediately after a relocation are the evidence an article 5º expert and a judge will read. Parents on either side should be building that record with advice, not improvising it.

Which court can hear an alienation claim when the family is split across countries?

Start from the general rule: Brazilian courts have jurisdiction where the defendant is domiciled in Brazil or the obligation is to be performed here (CPC/2015, art. 21), and, in family cases, STJ Súmula 383 places jurisdiction, in principle, in the forum of the domicile of the person holding custody. Because an alienation claim is a claim about a child’s contact and psychological welfare, it belongs, in practice, to the court where the child lives.

Three scenarios follow.

The child lives in Brazil. A Brazilian family court has jurisdiction, applies Lei 12.318/2010, and can order its full range of measures. The foreign parent participates through Brazilian counsel under a power of attorney, may be heard by video, and may submit foreign evidence. This is the ordinary case for a foreign parent alleging that the Brazilian parent is obstructing contact.

The child lives abroad after an agreed or authorised move. A Brazilian court will usually not decide the merits of contact for a child settled abroad, and a Brazilian alienation order would face recognition hurdles there. The claim, if it exists, belongs in the child’s country under its law, which may have no equivalent statute and may treat alienation as a factor rather than a cause of action. Brazilian counsel’s role becomes advisory and evidentiary.

The child was moved abroad unilaterally. Article 8º keeps jurisdiction in Brazil for family-contact cases despite the move, and, if the destination is a Hague contracting state, the return mechanism through ACAF and the foreign Central Authority is the primary tool. The alienation claim is litigated in the Brazilian court once, and if, the child is back, or is raised in the foreign court only insofar as that court will hear it.

The mirror scenario, a child moved unilaterally to Brazil, is discussed in the next section. In every scenario, the sequencing of filings between the two countries is a decision to take with counsel on both sides before anything is filed; a claim filed in the wrong court can be used against the parent who filed it.

Legal basis: CPC/2015, arts. 21–25; STJ Súmula nº 383; Lei nº 12.318/2010, art. 8º; ECA, art. 147; 1980 Hague Convention (Decreto nº 3.413/2000), arts. 3, 7, and 12.

How does alienation feature inside a Hague Convention return case?

This is where foreign parents most often misjudge the terrain, in both directions.

A Hague return case in Brazil is brought by the Advocacia-Geral da União before the Justiça Federal, and it decides one question: whether a child wrongfully removed to or retained in Brazil should be returned to the country of habitual residence. Article 16 of the Convention directs the Brazilian court not to decide the merits of custody once it is on notice of the wrongful removal, and article 19 states that a return decision is not a determination on the merits of any custody issue. Parental alienation, as a claim about custody and contact, is therefore not adjudicated in the return case.

It nonetheless enters the case in three indirect ways.

Through the grave-risk exception. A taking parent resisting return under article 13(b) may say that the child fears the other parent. The left-behind parent’s response is often that the fear is induced, and here the language of Lei 12.318/2010, and the psychosocial reports that federal courts commission, become relevant, not to decide alienation but to assess whether a “grave risk” has been demonstrated on evidence rather than on the child’s rehearsed statements.

Through the child’s objection. The second paragraph of article 13 lets the court take account of the views of a child who has reached an appropriate age and maturity. Courts everywhere ask whether those views are the child’s own; Brazilian federal courts do so with multidisciplinary teams, and the presence or absence of influence is squarely in issue.

Through undertakings and contact. Interim contact under article 21, and the terms on which a voluntary return is agreed, are shaped by what each parent has done to facilitate or frustrate the other’s relationship with the child. A parent who has kept contact open, even under strain, is in a better position at every stage.

What a left-behind parent should not do is file a separate alienation claim in a Brazilian family court while the return case is pending. It invites the argument that the parent has accepted Brazilian jurisdiction over custody, it opens a second front the taking parent can use, and it asks a state court to do what article 16 says it should not yet do. What a taking parent should not do is assume that the label “alienation”, attached to the parent left behind, converts into a grave-risk finding; article 13(b) is decided on evidence. Equally, a left-behind parent should not assume the exception is a dead letter: in ADI 4245 and ADI 7686, judged 27 August 2025, the STF held that article 13(1)(b) must be read with the child’s best interests (Constitution, art. 227) and with a gender perspective, and applies where there are objective and concrete indications of domestic violence, even where the child is not the direct victim.

Legal basis: 1980 Hague Convention (Decreto nº 3.413/2000), arts. 12, 13, 16, 19, and 21; Constituição Federal, art. 109 (federal jurisdiction over cases founded on a treaty); Resolução CNJ nº 449/2022, art. 12, III (the objection defence framed as the preference of a child over twelve) and art. 16 (where it is raised, the judge hears the child and verifies that the statement is free from undue influence by the person responsible for the removal or retention, or by third parties); STF, ADI 4245 and ADI 7686, judged 27 August 2025.

How do alienation and domestic-violence allegations interact?

This is the most sensitive part of the terrain, and it has moved in recent years.

Critics of Lei 12.318/2010, in Brazil and internationally, have argued that alienation claims are used to discredit reports of abuse and domestic violence, and that the threat of a custody reversal under article 6º silences protective parents, most often mothers. The principal vehicle is PL 1.372/2023, in the Senado Federal, which would revoke Lei 12.318/2010 outright; it received a favourable opinion in the Comissão de Direitos Humanos in August 2023 and has since sat in the Comissão de Assuntos Sociais. It has not been voted by the Senate plenary, and the statute remains in force. A parallel bill, PL 2.812/2022, is before the Câmara dos Deputados. The debate is live, and the position should be checked at the date it matters. Two reforms have already narrowed the law’s edge rather than removed it. Lei 14.340/2022 revoked the suspension of parental authority as an alienation remedy and rewrote the rules on assisted contact so that a professional’s attestation of imminent risk can suspend it. Lei 14.713/2023 amended the Código Civil so that joint custody is not applied where there is evidence of a risk of domestic or family violence, and directed judges to ask the parties about such risk before fixing custody.

For a cross-border family the practical consequences are these. A parent who fled with a child citing violence should expect the Brazilian court to examine the allegation seriously, with protective measures available under the Lei Maria da Penha (Lei 11.340/2006) where the facts support them, and should also expect the other parent to invoke Lei 12.318/2010 and to ask for an expert assessment. A parent accused of violence who believes the accusation is a device to obstruct contact should expect the court to test both narratives through the article 5º assessment and through evidence, and should understand that the accusation will be examined on its own footing, not dismissed because alienation is alleged in response. In a Hague return case, the same two narratives meet under article 13(b), where the question is not who is telling the truth about the marriage but whether return would expose the child to a grave risk that protective measures in the home country cannot address.

None of this is a formula. It is a description of a court system that, after 2022 and 2023, is more careful with the alienation label than it was, and no less committed to the child’s contact with both parents where that contact is safe.

Legal basis: Lei nº 12.318/2010, arts. 4º and 6º, as amended by Lei nº 14.340/2022; Código Civil, art. 1.584, §2º, as amended by Lei nº 14.713/2023; Lei nº 11.340/2006 (Lei Maria da Penha); 1980 Hague Convention, art. 13(b).

What evidence does a Brazilian court act on, and how is it gathered across borders?

The centre of an alienation case is the article 5º expert assessment: a psychologist or multidisciplinary team, appointed by the court, interviewing the parents and the child, reviewing documents, and reporting within 90 days, extendable. Judges rely heavily on it. Around it sits the documentary record, and for a cross-border family that record has particular features.

The contact log. A dated record of every call scheduled, made, missed, and cancelled, with screenshots, is the single most persuasive document a distant parent can bring, in either direction. It shows facilitation or obstruction without adjectives.

School and medical information. Item V of article 2º names the withholding of relevant information as an example of alienation. A parent abroad who has asked the school for reports and been refused, or a parent in Brazil who has sent them unprompted, has evidence.

Travel and authorisations. Requests for travel authorisations under the ECA, refusals, and the reasons given, tell a court who is enabling contact and who is preventing it. Our guide on travel authorisations for children leaving Brazil covers the formalities.

Foreign expert reports. A report by a psychologist abroad can be filed as documentary evidence, sworn-translated, with the professional’s credentials, and with its context explained if it was prepared for another proceeding. The Brazilian court will usually still order its own assessment, and may prefer an expert who speaks the child’s language and knows the child’s environment. Video participation by foreign professionals is sometimes allowed.

The child’s voice. Brazilian courts hear children in an age-appropriate, protected setting, often through the psychosocial team rather than in open court, and consistently ask whether what the child says is the child’s own. A parent who coaches a child for the interview does themselves harm.

Foreign parents and language. Everything is in Portuguese. A parent who cannot follow the proceeding depends on counsel for more than argument; they depend on counsel to present a foreign life, foreign documents, and sometimes a foreign professional’s opinion in terms a Brazilian judge and expert will understand.

Legal basis: Lei nº 12.318/2010, arts. 2º, parágrafo único, V, and 5º; CPC/2015, arts. 369–384 (evidence), 464–480 (expert evidence), and 192 (Portuguese as the language of proceedings; translation of foreign documents); ECA, art. 100, parágrafo único, XII (child’s right to be heard).

Speak to counsel — the assessment is where cases turn. How a parent presents in the interviews, what documents are supplied to the expert, and whether foreign evidence is framed as context or as a challenge to the court’s expert can decide the report. Preparation with counsel is not coaching; it is understanding the process.

What remedies exist, and what can they achieve when a parent lives abroad?

Article 6º’s measures are designed to restore the bond, in escalating steps. In cross-border families some of them work differently.

• Warning (I) and fine (III) operate on the parent within the court’s reach; a fine against a parent abroad is enforceable only through recognition there.
• Expansion of contact (II) is the workhorse. Courts can order video contact at fixed times, extended holidays with the distant parent, the sharing of school and medical information, and the funding of travel, and can attach the ECA travel authorisations needed to make holidays real.
• Psychological or biopsychosocial monitoring (IV) is ordered for the child and often for the parents; where a parent lives abroad, courts have accepted monitoring through professionals there, reporting to the Brazilian court, though practice varies.
• Change of custody (V) and precautionary fixing of the child’s domicile (VI) are the strong measures, and article 7º’s preference for the parent who better enables contact is their principle. A change of custody to a parent abroad raises the relocation and recognition questions discussed in our cross-border custody guide; it is granted on the child’s best interests, not as a sanction, and courts weigh the disruption of a second move.

The enforcement of any Brazilian order abroad depends on the other country’s recognition rules; Brazil is not a party to the 1996 Hague Child Protection Convention, and article 21 of the 1980 Convention offers Central Authority assistance with access rights but not enforcement of a Brazilian alienation finding as such. Which is why, in practice, the most effective remedies in cross-border alienation cases are the ones that operate on the child’s daily life in Brazil, expanded and protected contact above all, and the ones both parents agree to and have mirrored in both countries.

Legal basis: Lei nº 12.318/2010, arts. 6º (as amended by Lei nº 14.340/2022) and 7º; Código Civil, arts. 1.583–1.584; ECA, arts. 83–85 (travel authorisations); 1980 Hague Convention (Decreto nº 3.413/2000), art. 21.

What should a parent on either side actually do?

For the parent abroad who believes contact is being obstructed from Brazil:

• Keep the contact log from today, and keep it factual.
• Ask, in writing, for what you are entitled to: calls at set times, school reports, medical information, holiday dates. Refusals are evidence; requests never made are not.
• Do not use the word “alienation” in every message. It is a legal conclusion; let the record show the facts.
• Engage Brazilian counsel before filing anywhere, and agree the sequence with your own lawyer at home.
• If the child was taken to Brazil wrongfully, pursue return first; see our first 72 hours guide.

For the parent in Brazil who is accused, or who fears being accused:

• Facilitate contact visibly: propose the schedule, send the reports, keep the calls. The statute’s article 7º rewards exactly this.
• Do not discuss the case, or the other parent, with the child.
• If there are safety concerns, raise them through the proper channels, with evidence, and with counsel; do not let them surface for the first time as a reply to an alienation claim.
• Prepare for the article 5º assessment with counsel; understand what the expert is looking for.

For both: the label is not the case. The evidence is.

Hypothetical illustration — not a real client.

Imagine a German father in Munich and a Brazilian mother who, two years ago, relocated with their daughter to Florianópolis under a court-authorised agreement providing for fortnightly video calls, summers in Germany, and shared school information. In the second year the calls become irregular, the school reports stop, and the girl, now ten, tells her father on the phone that she “doesn’t want to talk to Germany anymore”. The father keeps a dated log for four months, writes to the mother each time asking for the missed call and the term report, and only then instructs counsel in Brazil.

The Brazilian family court, on the father’s application, sets minimum contact at the first hearing, orders an article 5º assessment, and hears the child through the psychosocial team. The expert’s report finds obstruction of contact and withholding of information but no repudiation induced to the point of rupture; the judge warns the mother, expands the father’s contact to include a Brazilian winter holiday, orders psychological monitoring for the child, and directs the school to send reports to both parents. The father’s log, not his adjectives, carries the decision.

Every distinguishing detail here is invented. Real situations turn on their own facts, dates, and documents, and require individual analysis. Nothing in this example predicts any outcome.

What are the most common mistakes?

• Treating the label as the case. Lei 12.318/2010 works on evidence, through an expert assessment; “alienation” in a message is not a finding.
• Filing an alienation claim in a Brazilian family court while a Hague return case is pending. Article 16 reserves custody for later, and the filing can be read as acceptance of Brazilian jurisdiction.
• Relocating unilaterally and expecting the move to change the court. Article 8º keeps jurisdiction where it was.
• Letting contact lapse while the dispute runs. The parent who keeps calling, and documents it, is the parent article 7º favours.
• Coaching the child. Psychosocial teams are trained to see it, and it turns the case.
• Presenting a foreign expert report as a substitute for the court’s own. It is context; the article 5º assessment is the centre.
• Answering a violence allegation only with an alienation allegation. After 2022 and 2023, courts examine each on its own evidence.
• Assuming a Brazilian alienation order will be enforced abroad. It travels only through the other country’s recognition rules.

Cross-border parental alienation at a glance

Question	Answer	Where
Definition	Interference with the child’s psychological formation leading to repudiation of a parent or damage to the bond; examples include an unjustified distant move to hinder contact	Lei 12.318/2010, art. 2º
Is relocation abroad alienation?	Not in itself; unilateral, unjustified, contact-cutting moves fit item VII	Art. 2º, VII; CC art. 1.584, §2º
Which court	Child’s domicile (Súmula 383); a unilateral move does not shift jurisdiction	CPC art. 21; Lei 12.318, art. 8º
Inside a Hague return case	Not adjudicated; relevant only to art. 13 exceptions and contact undertakings. Grave risk now covers objective indications of domestic violence even where the child is not the direct victim	Hague 1980, arts. 13, 16, 19, 21; Res. CNJ 449/2022, art. 16; STF, ADI 4245 and ADI 7686, 27/08/2025
Procedure	Priority handling; provisional contact; expert report within 90 days	Lei 12.318, arts. 4º–5º
Remedies	Warning, expanded contact, fine, monitoring, change of custody, fixing of domicile	Art. 6º (as amended by Lei 14.340/2022); art. 7º
Violence allegations	Examined on their own footing; joint custody excluded where risk shown	Lei 14.713/2023; Lei 11.340/2006
Enforcement abroad	Under the other country’s recognition rules; Brazil not in Hague 1996	Hague 1980, art. 21

Key terms

• Alienação parental — parental alienation as defined by Lei 12.318/2010.
• Convivência familiar — the child’s right to family contact, the interest the statute protects.
• Perícia biopsicossocial — the court-ordered expert assessment under art. 5º.
• Guarda compartilhada — joint custody, the Brazilian default.
• Convivência assistida — assisted contact, the minimum ensured under art. 4º.
• Súmula 383 (STJ) — jurisdiction follows the domicile of the custodial parent.
• Article 16 (Hague 1980) — no custody merits decision while a return application is pending.
• Article 13(b) — the grave-risk exception to return.
• Lei Maria da Penha — Lei 11.340/2006, the domestic-violence protection statute.

Key takeaways

• Brazil has a statute: Lei 12.318/2010 defines parental alienation, lists examples including an unjustified distant move to hinder contact, and gives judges graduated remedies from a warning to a change of custody.
• A relocation abroad is not alienation by itself; a unilateral, unjustified, contact-cutting move is what item VII describes.
• Jurisdiction follows the child (Súmula 383) and cannot be shifted by a unilateral move (art. 8º); a child taken wrongfully to a Hague state is returned first.
• Inside a Hague return case, alienation is not adjudicated; it bears only on the article 13 exceptions and on contact undertakings, and filing a separate custody claim in Brazil during the return case is a mistake.
• The article 5º expert assessment is the centre of the case; foreign reports are context, not substitutes.
• The contact log is the best evidence for a distant parent on either side.
• Violence allegations are examined on their own footing, and the law has narrowed since 2022 and 2023; PL 1.372/2023 would repeal the statute but has not been voted by the Senate plenary, so confirm the current text.
• Brazilian remedies work best on the child’s life in Brazil; enforcement abroad depends on the other country’s rules.

Related guides on this site

• Parental alienation in Brazil: identify and address
• Custody orders across borders: relocation, mirror orders, and travel authorisations
• Child abduction to Brazil: the first 72 hours for a left-behind parent
• International child abduction and the Hague Convention in Brazil
• Child custody in Brazil for foreign parents
• Joint custody in Brazil: complete guide
• International divorce in Brazil: a complete guide

How ZS Advogados can help

Cross-border alienation cases are decided on placement and on record: which court hears the claim, in what sequence relative to any Hague or relocation proceeding, and whether the evidence of contact, information, and conduct was built before the label was used. Parents on both sides of a border are working in a language and a system that is foreign to one of them, and the expert phase rewards those who understood it in advance.

Our team advises parents in Brazil and abroad on alienation claims within cross-border custody: assessing whether and where a claim can be brought, coordinating with counsel in the other country on sequencing, representing a parent under a power of attorney before Brazilian family courts, preparing clients for the article 5º assessment, presenting foreign evidence in a form Brazilian courts accept, and seeking or defending the article 6º measures. We work in English and Portuguese. Details, including how to reach an attorney directly, are on our cross-border family law page, or by telephone at +55 (18) 3908-1653.

• Family law — custody, contact, alienation proceedings, expert assessments
• International law — jurisdiction, Hague coordination, foreign evidence and recognition

Book a consultation to have the claim, the court, and the record reviewed before anything is filed.

Technical review by the ZS Advogados Associados team, including co-founding partner Karina Peres Silvério (OAB/SP 331.050) and founding partner Zachariah Zagol (OAB/SP 351.356). Contact: contato@zsassociados.com — Presidente Prudente, SP.

Sources and legal basis

• Lei nº 12.318/2010 — alienação parental (Planalto)
• Lei nº 14.340/2022 — amendments to Lei 12.318/2010 and to the ECA on assisted contact and remedies (Planalto)
• Lei nº 14.713/2023 — joint custody excluded where there is a risk of domestic violence (Planalto)
• Lei nº 13.058/2014 — joint custody as the default (Planalto)
• Lei nº 10.406/2002 — Código Civil (arts. 1.583–1.590) (Planalto)
• Lei nº 8.069/1990 — Estatuto da Criança e do Adolescente (Planalto)
• Lei nº 11.340/2006 — Lei Maria da Penha (Planalto)
• Lei nº 13.105/2015 — Código de Processo Civil (arts. 21–25, 192, 369–384, 464–480) (Planalto)
• Decreto nº 3.413/2000 — 1980 Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction (Planalto)
• Superior Tribunal de Justiça — Súmula nº 383 (STJ)
• Recomendação CNJ nº 128, de 15 de fevereiro de 2022 — recommends adoption of the Protocolo para Julgamento com Perspectiva de Gênero (CNJ)
• Resolução CNJ nº 492, de 17 de março de 2023 — makes the Protocol’s directives binding across the Judiciary (CNJ)
• Resolução CNJ nº 449/2022 — procedure in 1980 Hague Convention return actions (CNJ)
• STF — ADI 4245 and ADI 7686, judged 27 August 2025: art. 13(1)(b) read with the child’s best interests and a gender perspective (STF)
• Senado Federal — PL 1.372/2023 (proposal to revoke Lei 12.318/2010): full legislative history

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This guide is for informational and educational purposes only, in line with Provimento No. 205/2021 of the Brazilian Bar Association (OAB). It is not legal advice, an opinion, or an offer of services, does not refer to any specific case, and does not guarantee any result. It describes Brazilian law and practice; references to the law, courts, and procedures of other countries are factual context only. Lei 12.318/2010 has been amended and its repeal has been debated; its text and the case law applying it should be confirmed at the relevant date. Rules and provisions are cited as of August 2026; changes after that date are not reflected. Each situation requires individual analysis by a licensed attorney. Last updated August 2026.