Should there be a minimum age for piercings?

I think that there should be.

I was in town earlier today and happened to be in a well known High Street shop that offers ear piercing looking for some hair accessories.

There was a woman sitting on the ear piercing seat with a tiny child on her lap.  The father was trying to distract her with a cuddly toy but she was breaking her heart.  I left the shop, having not bought anything, just as the mother and father swapped position, with him on the chair holding the baby for the assistant to have another go.

I didn't intervene, as obviously neither the parents nor the shop, were breaking any laws.

But surely, in these days of almost everything that those of us who grew up in the 70s and before, accepted as the norm, seems to be viewed as child abuse, why isn't this cosmetic mutilation of a child, which is what it is, acceptable.

There are enough people who complain about children wearing make up, but make up can be washed off, a piercing cannot be removed.  There are always complaints when non-age appropriate clothing is brought out.

Please don't think I am anti-piericng, I am not, I have 5 holes in one ear, 4 in the other, belly button done twice and one nipple pierced.

But my first piercings were not until I was 10.  I was old enough to understand what was going on.  I understood that it would hurt and that I had to take care of them.

Maybe there should be a review.