Children and Young Persons (Care and Protection) Amendment (Body Piercing and Tattooing) Bill 2008
Reverend the Hon. Dr Gordon Moyes: This is important legislation. The object of the Children and Young Persons (Care and Protection) Amendment (Body Piercing and Tattooing) Bill 2008 is to amend the Children and Young Persons (Care and Protection) Act 1998 to prohibit the intimate body piercing of children under the age of 16 years and to require parental consent for non-intimate body piercing of children under the age of 16 years.
The bill also extends the circumstances in which it is an offence to tattoo a child or young person under the age of 18 years to include procedures such as scarification, banding and beading. “Intimate” parts of the body are defined in this bill as including the genitals and the nipples of both males and females.
The entire remaining body is considered to be “non-intimate”, although I believe that this definition does not adequately reflect our multicultural society, which has many ethnic, tribal or religious groups that would consider other areas of the body to be taboo, sacred or intimate, in addition to those mentioned by the bill.
Additionally, parental consent is not always the voice of reason and sense that we would like to think it is. For instance, the pre-teen models for the recently banned exhibit in Sydney all had modelled for the photographer with their parents’ consent and support. Stage mothers who push their children into gruelling acting and singing training, competitions and sometimes compromising situations with casting agents, without regard to the children’s actual interest in being there, willingly give their consent.
Alcoholic, abusive, neglectful and drug-using parents are already behaving in ways detrimental to their children’s welfare, and there is no real reason to assume that they would suddenly take an interest in their children’s welfare regarding body adornment. In other words, parents often do not provide the kind of attentive and protective care that we would hope for. However, parental consent is the only practical means of control that we have recourse to, in our desire to protect children and young people from doing something that is, for the most part, non-reversible.
In this bill, the definition of tattooing has been extended to include the practices of beading, scarification and branding. “Beading” is the term for the patterned scar that forms after cutting the skin, and the insertion or implanting of objects beneath the skin to produce what people believe is a decorative lump.
An example would be the metallic mohawks implanted into the scalps of young men wishing to look fierce—a form popular a few years ago, particularly in the United States of America. Scarification means the creation of scar tissue by cutting. And branding is the application of heat to the skin to create a permanent marking by burning. All of these practices carry the risk of serious infection no matter where on the body they are performed. It is crucial that they be carried out in a sanitary environment with sterilised equipment.
A range of severe health risks is associated with intimate piercing, beading, implantation of jewellery, or the like. The most common side effect of piercing is infection, which can often be prevented by conscientious aftercare practices and good hygiene. However, infection should not be considered insignificant; it can spread and cause serious health problems, including sterility and potentially life-threatening conditions.
If equipment is not being sterilised at a piercing studio, the procedure has the potential to pass on any number of diseases, including tetanus, tuberculosis, hepatitis, HIV, and other sexually transmitted diseases. There can also be serious bleeding, and, in men, the risk of impotence caused by nerve damage. There are also potential allergic reactions to the materials used, and possible difficulties with urination if the urethra narrows in response to the procedure.
It may also prove to be an ongoing inconvenience to set off metal detectors, and then always have to explain that you have metal implants in your private parts. However, it is a myth that you are any more likely to attract lightning with your metal implants. There is apparently some level of community acceptance of these practices, illustrated by the Art Gallery of New South Wales hosting in 2000 an extensive exhibit called “Body Art”.
This exhibit, although somewhat controversial, was well attended and acclaimed. In researching the topic I found that most photographs online of the work done appeared to be of teenagers in the 16 to 19 years age range and covered large surfaces of their bodies. So this bill is targeting the right demographic.
It is interesting to me that Western civilisation is, or was, considered to be Greco-Roman or Judeo-Christian in its institutions, aesthetic sensibilities, and cultural expressions. The Greeks, particularly, considered the unadorned body the height of perfection, and felt passionately that any mutilation was an offence to the gods who made us.
The beauty of the body was so revered that the original Olympic Games were held with male athletes in the nude, so that the entire athletic specimen could be enjoyed—in the fluidity and grace of his motion, strength and effort. Only males competed in or attended these early Olympic Games, but the cultural ideal of the wholeness and perfection of the human body was held by all.
The Greeks considered circumcision, which was practised in their small territory of Palestine, to be a barbaric mutilation of the male body. Many battles were fought over the Jews’ commitment to this practice while under the jurisdiction of the Greeks, who attempted to ban it.
The Bible has something to say about tattooing. It says, according to Leviticus 19, “Do not … put tattoo marks on yourselves.” The Catholic church outlawed tattoos in the eighteenth century AD, after which the practice was forgotten in the West for nearly a thousand years.
Then seafarers involved in the extension of empire in the fifteenth to nineteenth centuries encountered American Indians and Polynesians who all had elaborate tattoo customs, and they brought news of those practices back to the West upon their return. Many of the practices that we are discussing today have been used by various cultures throughout the ages, often to serve as an initiation ceremony, or a rite of passage, for recognition of adult status.
Aboriginal groups, such as the Wardaman and the Jawoyn people, used to slash both males and females at about age 17. Without this identifying scarification they were considered “cleanskins” and were unable to marry, or to take part in corroborees, participate in trade, or attend burial ceremonies. Such scarification, according to the Australian Museum Research Library, is now restricted almost entirely to groups of Aborigines in Arnhem Land.
African tribes have traditionally used these various modes of adornment both as adding to beauty and to indicate status. In the past the highest status that New Zealand Maori men and women could attain was achieved by having their faces tattooed extensively. When visiting Maori communities we can still see some of the very old people with this “moko”. The more extensive the tattoo, the more respect they were accorded. We see this still today in NRL players from New Zealand who play in our sporting competitions.
In our contemporary society these various slashings, embeddings and markings are used to beautify, to show allegiance to or membership of a subculture such as the emos or the goths, or to give people a sense of identity or a way to stand out from their peers. Some young people have reported lamenting the absence of any rite of passage in our society that is supposed to denote the taking on of the responsibilities of adulthood. They claim to use these practices for that purpose.
Young people generally have no sense of their own mortality, or the span of life yet ahead of them—most cannot fathom it, nor see themselves as adults. Therefore, they do not fear their body being forever altered. Future embarrassment over youthful folly is rarely, if ever, imagined. If it were, there would be far less folly found in youth across all times and cultures. These trends come and go.
A health-promoting educational campaign designed to dissuade youngsters from considering this form of self-expression may be a good idea, along with making it harder to obtain, if this bill is passed. However, I have observed that mere illegality rarely prevents people from doing what they want to do, and frequently makes it more tempting.
It confers upon them even more status among their peers, whose high opinion is at least part of their motivation. Any potential resulting black-market or amateur provision of do-it-yourself piercings, implants and beading would carry far more dangers of injury and infection than now exist with regular, legal practitioners.
Despite the few misgivings mentioned, I support the bill.
