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Time to stop toying around with our children’s safety – Calidya Idem

February 19, 2016

A recent news reported that Hong Kong Consumer Council finds safety gate for children contains excessive level of chemical at 18mg/kg (European standards maximum limit is 12mg/kg) linked to learning deficiencies.

Ironically who would have thought that a safety gate would possess those level of unforeseeable danger?

Googling through reports on danger of toys or children's products would have left anyone with a baffling mind of how dangerous our children’s’ world is. The settling pink or blue theme colour certainly cannot help ease the worrisome parents’ mind.

The US Consumer Product Safety Commission (US CPSC) reported of 10 recalls for the first two months of 2016 related to children's toys and products. From a recall case over injury risks, like the children pajama that pose risks of burn injuries or a stroller’s arm bar padding that can come of in fragments and cause choking, to a recall case of a bean bag (in this case, not a children-related product) after two toddlers reportedly suffocated and died for being trapped inside the bean bag. (The zippers on the bean bag chairs can be opened by children who can then crawl inside, get trapped and suffocate, or choke, on the foam beads inside).

Curiously enough, these recalls or cases are never heard being reported in Malaysia.

Does this mean we have no possibility of risk getting injured as such?

We do have a Consumer Protection (Safety Standards for Toys) Regulations 2009, which confirmed to seven Malaysian safety standards documents: Safety aspects related to mechanical and physical properties, flammability, migration of certain elements, experimental sets for chemistry and related activities, chemical toys (sets) other than experimental sets, graphical symbol for age warning labelling and safety of electric toys.

Toy manufacturers and suppliers, then, are required to declare that they followed the requirements of the safety standards and will receive an MC (Malaysian Conformity) mark for their company upon conformance.

One might think with legislation, conformity mark and enforcement, we are in good hands. Apparently, that is not the case, with conveniences like new inventions, cross-border trade and online purchasing, our children are still pretty much exposed to the risk.

Taking into consideration all the aspects, it can be concluded that the seven standards no longer cover the overall safety of toys or children’s products available in Malaysia.

For example, many countries have started setting up limit of phthalates (a type of plasticisers that make plastics more flexible and harder to break), to the minimum level, because of its effects on health (hormone disruptors). Some countries even started banning certain types of phthalates in their products.

Other than that, although age warning labels are included in most toy products, choking from small parts are still a common cause of why toy recalls happen.

The Malaysian Association of Standards Users also did a survey on the significance of MC mark to consumers when buying toys, by testing on the ability of consumers to differentiate genuine and fake MC mark.

From the survey, 64% respondents have no idea of what MC mark is and 61% said they would only observe the physical aspects of the product when choosing toys for their children.

Almost all the respondents have no knowledge on how to differentiate a genuine or a fake MC mark due to its nature which can easily be self-printed and no way of checking if the serial number included in the label (if) is genuine or not.

The European Commission rapid alert system for dangerous products (Rapex) recalled almost 468 toys (only) in 2015, and almost 633 recalled in 2014.

Rapex ensures that information about dangerous products withdrawn from the market and/or recalled from consumers anywhere in Europe is quickly circulated between member states and the European Commission, so that appropriate action can be taken everywhere in the EU.

The EU safety regulation is known to be the strictest compared to other regions and every year the number of toys and children's products' recalls are still happening. The report also mentioned that well-known toy brands are some of the recalled products.

Apart from that, not all parents would buy their children toys from toy retailers, and there is also no specified reporting mechanism to report injuries related to toys or children products available in Malaysia.

Considering all the possibilities, it would be best for Malaysia to have a restructured regulations (adopting more safety standards, national and international) as soon possible, a platform for toy database so that consumers can easily check the serial number of a product to validate its genuinity, a not-so-easily self-printed MC mark, a database of product recalls that would alert the public easier, and one where the public can have easy access to, and also a better market surveillance on markets and online shopping platforms.

It might not be an easy job but with it should also not be a one-man show. Better cooperation between different key players would ease the burden.

Toys might not be a big item but it is certainly a big money-making industry and that is why there is more to do. – February 19, 2016.

* Calidya Idem is technical programme executive, Malaysian Association of Standards Users.

* This is the personal opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of The Malaysian Insider.