A CHARITY is calling for the beauty industry to toughen up its regulations after it found salons were willing to give girls as young as nine years old a full bikini wax.

Women’s empowerment and social change charity Jeena International has raised safeguarding fears over the waxing of young children.

It comes after founder Rani Bilkhu heard the 'shrieks’ of a nine-year-old girl having a bikini wax at a Slough beauty salon. She then called more salons across the town, and country, posing as a mother who wanted to book her nine-year-old in for a full bikini - known in the industry as a 'Hollywood’.

Her survey found 92% of those asked would do the procedure.

“This raises further questions of normalising girls to cultural harmful practices, objectifying them and girls not being allowed to celebrate their bodies changing,” Mrs Bilkhu told The Observer. “It raises moral and ethical questions in the context of girls and women in the wider community.” She plans to contact local children’s safeguarding boards and beauty industry regulators to highlight the 'appalling’ practice. She added: “We will also be working within communities that practice this due to ill-informed cultural and faith practices as this is a form of cultural driven abuse - just like forced marriages, honour-based violence and female genital mutilation.” She called beauty salons in areas including Slough, Windsor and Maidenhead, Birmingham, East Ham, Bradford and Edinburgh.

She said 4% of the salons said they would only wax children aged over 12 and 4% said they would not consider waxing children. Some of the salons, when asked, even said they would give between a £10 and £30 discount as the girl was likely to be less developed than older people.

Deborah Morris, Education Officer at BABTAC says “When it comes to treating minors, the responsibility actually lies with the parent or guardian in the case of low-risk, non-invasive treatments. We advise our members that they should be comfortable carrying out the treatment, that they should assess the client on the basis of need – is there an alternative way of treating it – and that they should always have written parental consent. The parent should also be easily accessible throughout the treatment.” She added: “Treating a minor should never be done just for the sake of it, however each individual can be considered on a case-by-case basis. Some girls reach puberty before others and with that comes excess hair growth; if that then becomes the basis for bullying, the parent may decide to visit a salon for support to help alleviate the problem. In the case of waxing or intimate waxing, we would always encourage therapists to suggest other methods of hair removal before turning to waxing; however given the lack of long-term effects and the low-risk nature of the treatment, there are unlikely to be any harmful physical side-effects if the parent/minor wish to go ahead. We would suggest that a bikini line wax rather than a full bikini wax is sufficient, but ultimately that choice will lie with the client and their parent or guardian. Our advice to parents/guardians is always to work on the basis of need; does the minor need to have the treatment done? In some cases, the answer will be yes, for example if a child has early puberty and dark hair growth and shaving / hair removal is a problem. This is why case-by-case assessment is so important. Something to note, therapists cannot train to offer this treatment until they themselves are 18.”