There are no reported cases in Italy, although, with the increase in migration flows also due to climate change, there may be cases of minors arriving with scarification or of families practising it on their children in Italy.
In comparative jurisprudence, there is a well-known case that occurred in England in 1974 (R. v. Adesanya) concerning a Nigerian mother of the Yoruba group, who had emigrated to England and was tried for some injuries she had caused to her two children aged 9 and 14, by making ritual marks with a penknife on their faces, in order to perform a ritual of entry into the community to which she belonged. The judge's decision in this case implements a logic of leniency with respect to the woman, by ordering the suspension of the entire sentence, but it is also inspired by an assimilationist logic: for the judge, in fact, the woman is justified only because she has only recently arrived in England and is not familiar with many of the English laws, her non-punishability being only an exception. The ruling is really a warning to all migrants,[1] who are obliged to comply with the laws of the host state. The acknowledgement of cultural diversity is temporary, and does not focus on the value significance of the ritual signs for those directly concerned, or on the consent and sharing of the practice by the minors, who had taken pride in the ritual. In the ruling, the judge reiterates that the (English) law must be respected and cannot be further challenged in the future. Looking at the Italian legal system, specifically, one could certainly identify laws with the same scope as those indicated by the English judge, i.e. capable of incriminating the practice in the abstract: the discipline on the protection of physical integrity provided for by art. 5 of the Italian Civil Code does not admit bodily modifications that cause permanent diminution; in the criminal sphere, in addition to the offence of injury provided for by art. 582 of the Criminal Code. In addition to the criminal offence provided for in Article 582 of the Criminal Code, which can also be applied on an aggravated basis if the 'victims' are minors, the new Article 583 quinquies of the Criminal Code (deformation of the appearance of the person through permanent facial injuries) could also be called into play. However, among the laws that should not be 'further' called into question are certain fundamental principles that protect cultural rights and regulate, above all, the application of criminal law as a last resort. On closer inspection, in a hypothetical concrete case, the abstract overlap between the execution of ritual signs on one's children's faces and the violation of these norms may no longer be so obvious once the functionality of the family context of origin has been ascertained, so that light is shed on the identity functions of ritual signs and their meaning in the cultures that practise them, which certainly does not include the desire to injure, maim or 'scar' one's children's faces but rather that of making them part of a community and 'beautifying' them. The 'diminution' of the permanent physical integrity not admitted by Article 5 of the Civil Code is such only if seen from the perspective of the majority groups, who do not practise these signs, certainly not for those who aspire to have them in order to identify themselves in a certain cultural group, sometimes even before adulthood, such as the Yoruba minors of the English case. In fact, in the majority culture, marks on the face have always been seen as an impairment, a disgrace, an element that undermines beauty and are not linked to sacred or beauty elements. Also missing would be the intentionality to injure and therefore the intent required by criminal law. In particular, it is worth making some clarifications on the recently introduced case of Article 583 quinquies. The circumstances in which it was enacted (Law No. 69 of 2019, known as the "Code Red"), make one of the main purposes of the provision to combat acts of disfigurement, perpetrated with a purely malicious purpose and unfortunately very frequent, especially against the female gender (e.g. the phenomenon of vitriolage). The recent case law on the rule in question (G.U.P. Parma, sentence no. 786 of 7 December 2021) has specified the notions of 'disfigurement' and 'deformation' contained in the rule: permanent disfigurement is a sign capable of altering the physiognomy of the person, even if minor in size, with respect to the natural features of the face, excluding their harmony with an unpleasant effect or hilarity, even if not necessarily repugnant, and compromising the image in an aesthetic sense. Permanent deformation, by contrast, is an anatomical alteration of the face, which profoundly changes its symmetry, so as to cause a ridiculing and unpleasant disfigurement (e.g. mutilation of the nostrils or facial paresis). Both cases refer to real acts of wounding, characterised by an exclusively injurious intent and determining the modification of the harmony of the face, which is why they have nothing to do with ritual marks, affixed on adults or minors for a question of identity and in most cases with their consent. The traits generated by this ritual are not 'accidental' but measured and precisely aimed at placing themselves in harmony with the subjects' faces rather than determining their imbalance, precisely because they are capable of manifesting precise meanings and likely to be understood by other members of the community. Even if one were to fear a violation of public order, morality and public health, as happened, for example, in England - not in relation to ritual scarification but in relation to other extreme bodily modifications (Pegg, 2019) - identity rights could still prevail: ritual marks are not usual to generate serious pathologies like other bodily modifications on minors even permitted by the legal systems (e.g. ritual male circumcision in some cases; see the entry Male Circumcision in this Guidebook) and their impact on morality or public order would be no different from that generated by other accepted bodily modification practices, even towards minors, such as plastic surgery and the various types of piercings and tattoos. This is certainly a cultural practice that is difficult to accept in the view of the majority culture, in which all bodily modifications, especially when performed on very exposed parts of the body such as the face, have always had a negative connotation. This difficulty cannot, however, by itself justify the punishability of this conduct or be used to question the suitability of some foreign parents, especially once it has been ascertained that they not only lack any harmful intent but, on the contrary, hold to the conviction of acting as a good parent, in the exercise of the right and duty of education and of passing on one's cultural heritage to one's offspring.

notes

[1] "you and others who come to this country must realise that the law must be obeyed... It cannot be questioned any further, so other such offences intended to fulfil tribal traditions of Nigeria or other parts of Africa... will only result in conviction. Since this is the first such case ... I will operate with the utmost leniency. But no one else should expect to receive extenuating circumstances. The others (migrants) are now warned.” ​