During the annual International Body Piercing Conference organized by the Association of professional Piercers, the usual International Meeting was held open to participants at the conference.
This is an event that is out of the issues closely related to the practice itself, but it is an important time where through the participants, the focus is on the mainly bureaucratic and administrative situation related to body art practices and in particular body piercings.
It has been discussed how it is evolving and better involving  the issue in England a few years ago on the issue of female genital piercings that at this time come to my mind and not only, cataloged by authorities as “genital mutilation” and mistakenly united Female genital mutilation that is practiced in some Middle Eastern countries for women in childhood for cultural reasons.
Unfortunately, this is a point that comes close to us as practicing this profession. This is, in our view, a major mistake of interpretation above all in the light of the fact that older women who undergo genital piercing make it consciously and spontaneously, contrary to what happens in the case of genital mutilation of minors For cultural reasons.
Apart from this misguided interpretation by the authorities, which we hope is not voluntary but based on the non-knowledge of genital piercing, we have just discovered during the meeting that in England, women who undergo specialist visits mainly for emergencies First aid and for reasons beyond piercing, are reported against their will as victims of abuse, thus entering them in the list and statistics of abused women.
This is really a dangerous precedent that could trigger a whole set of limitations of personal freedom in countries that today are considered emancipated and liberal, such as England. This dangerous mistake could then be wiped out in other countries as well.
One thing we think is unbelievable for which, as a community, we are trying to oppose those that are ours in order to prevent it from consolidating and then becoming a trend even in other nations.
Another important point of credit is the fact that in the last few years there have been numerous professional organizing of body piercing around the world and that they are trying to organize professional training events to practice piercing a bit ‘ all over the world.
We as an association born in 2003 are personally very happy with these realities that are consolidating, especially with the help of the APP, an association from which all the others have left and which APP is supporting very effectively.
The association present at the meeting was: JPPA (Japanese Association), APPE (Spanish Association), LBP (Association that encloses a whole lot of South American realities), UK APP (English Association), VPP (German Association), APTPI (Italian piercers and tattoo associations that were represented here by Bruno Valsecchi, legal representative), the Brazilian association which is in the germinal state has no acronym yet, but which will soon be born legally and of course APP as the host organization.
In addition to the representatives of various associations, there were also many private individuals from USA, Mexico, Venezuela, Brazil, Argentina, England, Canda, Germany, Holland, Portugal, France, Japan and Italy. Professionals interested in the various international situations, who have also shown interest in their presence, to the ever-present need for an international coalition outside of strictly personal interests, for the benefit of our industry and for the sake of proper information Unified and uniform, which can communicate in a modern and professional way.
As an association we continue to make us available as we are doing for almost so years.
It was an important moment of sharing and interaction that should be repeated more often at least on individual continents in order to be even more effective.
APTPI staff