Sanctioned on 7 August 2006 by president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and subsequently implemented on 22 September 2006, the law is an important contribution to an international movement of criminalizing violence against women.

[6] Following these events, da Penha, along with the Center for Justice for International Law (CEJIL) and the Latin American Committee for the Defense of Women's Rights (CLADEM), spent the next twenty years fighting her husband through the Brazilian legal system; da Penha filed a complaint with the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, emphasizing the need for the state to intervene in combating gender based violence in the country.

[5] In February 2012, the Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of the Maria da Penha law, ruling that prosecutors “may bring domestic violence cases regardless of whether the victim presses charges or not.”[8] With the implementation of the Maria da Penha Law, Brazil arguably has one of the most progressive pieces of legislation addressing domestic violence in Latin America.

Speaking to these concerns, Brazil director at Human Rights Watch, Maria Laura Canineu said, “ The Maria da Penha law was a major step forward, but more than a decade later, implementation remains woefully inadequate throughout much of the country.”[5] More specifically, these shortcomings include the failure of police to follow procedure when a woman reports an incident of violence, the practice of demanding women undergo invasive medical procedures to prove abuse, the lack of a private space for the victim to share a testimony, and the failure to carry out protection orders against offenders.

[11] Additionally, political turmoil in Brazil has defunded many government programs protecting domestic violence victims, specifically women of color from low socio-economic classes who are already denied access to adequate health and legal services.