A recent news reported that Hong Kong Consumer Council finds a 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 baffled about how dangerous our children’s world is. The settling pink or blue theme colour certainly cannot help easing the worried parents’ minds.

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 recall cases with risk of injuries like the children pajamas 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 were reported suffocated and died when 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 of being reported in Malaysia. Does this mean that we have no possibility of risk getting injured as such? Now we do have a Consumer Protection (Safety Standards for Toys) Regulations 2009 which consist of 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/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 that with legislation, the 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. When 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 effect on health (hormone disruptors), some countries have even started banning certain types of phthalates in toys / products.

Other than that, although age warning label are included in most toys/products, choking from small parts and are still quite a common cause of why a toys recall happen.

‘64pct have no idea what is MC mark’

The Malaysian Association of Standards Users also did a survey on the significance of the 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 percent of respondents have no idea of what the MC mark is and 61 percent 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 between 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) it is genuine or not.

The European Commission rapid alert system for dangerous products (RAPEX) recalled almost 468 toys (only) in 2015 and almost 633 recall in 2014. The RAPEX system 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 toys regulation is known to be the strictest compare to other regions and every years the number of toys and children's products recalls are still happening. The report also mentioned that well-known toys brands are some of the recalled products.

Apart from that, not all parents would buy their children toys at toys retailers and there is also no specified reporting mechanism to report injuries related to toys or children’s 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 platforms for toys database so that consumers can easily check the serial number of a products to validate the genuinity, a not so easily self-printed MC mark, a database of products 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-person show, better cooperation between different key players would ease the burden. Toys might not be a big item but they are certainly a big money-making industry and that is why there is more to do.