The term 'homage to the child's penis', even though it is a heteronym forged in medical-anthropological literature (Money, Prakasam, Joshi 1991), proves to be suitable to summarise under a common umbrella a series of behaviours that have already presented themselves and may in the future present themselves to Italian judges and that constitute a new challenge of multiculturalism. Since this practice is unknown on the Italian, European and Western cultural horizon in general - at least in the forms of kissing, hickeys and rubbing, since there are other forms of 'penis-praise' of children both in Italy and in Europe - it may give rise to multicultural disputes that have already turned into court cases in the United States, Germany and Italy. Several parents were arrested because the practice of 'penis-homage' they were performing was subsumed by judges under the crime of sexual abuse or sexual acts with a minor. Faced with this picture, this Guidebook aims to clarify the anthropological meaning of this custom with the objective of providing judges, prosecutors, lawyers, other operators involved in the process and, more generally, all those who come into contact with a foreign child and his or her family, with the cognitive tools to be able to provide a correct reading of behaviour that may otherwise be easily confused with paedophilic gestures.

The following is a brief description of Italian and comparative jurisprudence on the cultural practice of homage to the child's penis (Ruggiu 2019a). As the reader can appreciate, the opinion of judges diverge, and the hermeneutics of the facts are strongly influenced by whether the judge had the opportunity to acquire adequate anthropological knowledge on the practice:

Italy

Criminal Court of Reggio Emilia (judgement of 21 November 2012) acquits an Albanian father who kissed his son on the genitals as a gesture of paternal pride due to the absence of the subjective element since, although the act was apparently of a sexual nature, the man performed it with a cultural motive.
 
Court of Appeal of Bologna (judgement of 19 April 2017) confirms the acquittal, with a different reasoning, i.e. arguing that not only is the subjective element of malice not found, but that the objective element of the offence is also lacking since the kiss was a cuddle given for the purpose of reaffirming the pride of procreation.
 
Court of Cassation sec. III Criminal (Sent. no. 29613 of 29 January 2018,) annuls the previous two acquittal opinions with deferral to a new judge (a new section of the Court of Appeals of Bologna) by using these three main arguments: a) the recognition of a cultural exemption meets the insurmountable limit of the inviolable rights of the person. The Supreme Court affirms: "The right, also inviolable ... not to deny one's cultural, religious and social traditions" (para. 3.4. right) must be balanced against the child's sexual freedom; (b) the latter was violated because the kissing involves an erogenous zone and, according to the Court's case law, this makes the act in itself invasive of the child's sexual sphere, beyond the subjective intentions of the father; c) the existence of the cultural practice is not certain since the cultural evidence adduced by the defence - a statement, moreover not authenticated, from the Prefecture of Vlore - does not mention kissing, but only caressing, and in this case we are dealing with real fellatio. Moreover, the existence of the practice is denied in Albania, since the Albanian penal code (Art. 100 ff.) provides for the crime of sexual abuse.
 
Court of Appeal of Bologna, in its capacity as referring judge, issued a new ruling on 16 May 2019 in which it sentenced the father for the offence under Article 609 quater - sexual acts with a minor - to two years and eight months' imprisonment and to compensation for damages to be paid in civil proceedings.

Germany

24 May 2020, Regional Court of Hamburg acquits a Bulgarian father of Roma origin who had fondled his child's penis in an internet video chat, recognising the lack of sexual intent following a cultural expert report presented by anthropologist Harika Dauth of the Max Planck Institute of Social Anthropology, Halle (Dauth, Ruggiu 2020).

Switzerland

In 2021, a public prosecutor in the Canton of Ticino (Switzerland) dismissed the case of a mother from the Dominican Republic who had touched her 10-year-old son's penis as a demonstration of maternal pride.