Unfortunately, with the end of relationships, many parents lose their rationality and use their own children to affect their ex-partner/spouse through the practice of parental alienation, which is nothing more than the practice of acts to try to distance the child from the other parent.
However, since 2010, the practice has been regulated by law, which imposes sanctions on parents who commit such acts of violence against their own children. Although the law is divisive, the fact is that this institution has been consolidating itself in the pursuit of the best interests of children and adolescents.
Proof of this is that this legislation was recently amended to modify some procedures related to parental alienation. One of the amended measures concerns supervised visitation, which can now take place in entities that have agreements with the courts.
The new legislation also allows the judge to appoint a judicial expert to carry out a psychological, biopsychosocial study or any other type of technical assessment, as well as for such studies to be carried out through periodic monitoring.
Another change introduced by the law concerns the hearing of minors, which, if necessary, will be conducted under the terms of Law 13.431/2017, which establishes the system for guaranteeing the rights of children and adolescents who are victims or witnesses of violence. This last inclusion allows us to interpret the law as understanding parental alienation as a form of violence against minors.
The changes made only reinforce the legislature’s concern with protecting vulnerable situations that children and adolescents may suffer when faced with parental alienation.
