Brazilian parents face 50 days in jail for homeschooling without woke lessons

SÃO PAULO, Brazil (LifeSiteNews) — A Brazilian court has sentenced two parents to 50 days in jail for homeschooling their daughters in a case sparking international outcry.

Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) International is sounding the alarm about the case of Audato and Ieda Denardi, who turned to homeschooling in 2020 amid the COVID crisis school shutdowns, and found it significantly benefited their daughters’ academic performance while enabling the family to incorporate their values into lessons.

But, ADF explains, homeschooling in Brazil is a legal gray area; in 2019 the “Brazilian Supreme Court ruled that homeschooling did not contravene the Constitution, but required a federal law to regulate it,” forcing the country’s 70,000 homeschooled children to deal with various legal hurdles and rely on international law to protect them. The Denardis are the first family to be charged criminally for not registering their children with a school, rather than treating it as an administrative matter.

The parents have been convicted of “intellectual neglect” due to their lack of lessons on “gender and sex education” and “tolerance and diversity,” despite prosecutors admitting there was no evidence of neglect or social or academic deficiency, and later requesting an acquittal. Nevertheless, the judge declared the parents were “using their daughters as pawns in an ideological struggle, subjecting them to a form of unregulated education, the effectiveness and quality of which lack adequate metrics within the Brazilian legal system, while completely excluding the State’s involvement.” 

The 50-day sentence is currently on hold pending appeal to the 7th Criminal Chamber of the Court of Justice of the State of São Paulo, backed by ADF International.

“As a mother, I cannot conceive a more dictatorial state than the one that wants me in jail because I chose to exercise my right to direct the education and upbringing of my daughters,” declared Ieda Denardi. “My husband and I are hopeful the court will recognize our right to choose the best education for our children and overturn this unjust conviction.”

Legislation to legalize homeschooling was introduced in Brazil’s lower House of Representatives in 2022, but remains stalled in the Senate.