Controvérsias em torno de conjugalidades juvenis Guarani/Kaiowá e a regulação de menoridades sexuais pelo estado brasileiro

Abstract

This study examines four judicial cases from the Court of Justice of the State of Mato Grosso do Sul (TJMS) between 2020 and 2023, monitored by the Regional Coordination of the National Foundation for Indigenous People in Dourados (CR DOU). These cases involve indigenous marital relationships between girls under 14 and older boys (aged 16 and above), which, under the strict interpretation of the amendment introduced by Federal Law 12.015/2009, fall under the criminal category of statutory rape. The research aims to explore the significance of these conjugal relationships for the Kaiowá and Guarani, considering their sociocultural contexts and gender dynamics in the (re)production of social and political life. Additionally, it examines the state discourses and legal frameworks invoked in these cases, focusing on the tension between the legally defined offense of “statutory rape” and the customary practices of forming marital bonds among Kaiowá and Guarani youth. Alongside detailed ethnographic analysis of sociopolitical organization, body formation, life cycles, and feminine subjectivities within the Guarani and Kaiowá communities, the dissertation also addresses controversies related to victimization” processes, governmental technologies, and bureaucratic mechanisms employed under the allegation of child protection, as well as the growing judicialization of life in marginalized and perceived at-risk or vulnerable contexts.