Special Feature
BTHA Safety Campaign
BTHA launches latest report ‘STILL toying with children’s safety’
The shocking new 39-page report shows that despite years of campaigning and government lobbying, online marketplaces and third-party sellers are still getting away with selling dangerous toys. The British Toy and Hobby Association is calling on manufacturers, distributors, retailers and consumers to throw their weight behind its latest Don’t Toy with Children’s Safety campaign, which aims to crack down on online marketplaces before more children are hurt. Toy World finds out more.
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n June 2019, following work carried out in 2018, the British Toy and Hobby Association launched a campaign - Don’t Toy with Children’s Safety - calling for action from the government to ensure unsafe toys are removed from the market. The campaign followed the publication of a study conducted across online platforms which found that, at the time, 58% of toys selected for assessment were noncompliant with toy safety regulations in the UK, and 22% demonstrated serious safety issues. The first report was followed by a second, released in October 2020, that aimed to raise this issue with more consumers, regulators and platforms. A little over two years later, the BTHA has now released the findings of a 2021 online marketplace toy safety investigation, showing that, sadly, very little has changed: 255 toys sold on Amazon, eBay, AliExpress and Wish were randomly selected, inspected and tested this time, with a whopping 88% found to be illegal and 48% unsafe for a child to play with. The resultant injuries that could have been caused by the unsafe and non-compliant toys ranged from choking and strangulation, damage to sight or hearing, burns, chemical poisoning and electric shocks, and injuries that would require surgical intervention, such as the removal of coin cell batteries from a child’s throat. The statistics are laid out in the BTHA’s latest report – appropriately named ‘Still Toying with Children’s
Safety’ – a damning 39-page document which lays bare the breadth and depth of the issue. As explained within the report, UK retailers have responsibilities, defined in the Toys (Safety) Regulations 2011, to check that the manufacturers of the toys they sell have made safe toys or labelled them correctly, and to act immediately should a product be found to have a safety issue. Manufacturers based outside the UK must add their address and company details, thus taking on the role of an importer under the Regulations, which have more detailed obligations. However, as it stands, online marketplace platforms are not classed as being either retailers or importers in the UK’s current economic operator model – simply the platform through which a sale is made. Ultimately, in many cases no checks are being made at all before consumers receive products, and in the case of toys, given to a young child. If a safety issue occurs after a product reaches the traditional retail market, Trading Standards officers are able to monitor and find unsafe items, and work with the retailer to remove them from sale. In cases where there is a danger, they can also initiate a recall, so consumers know they are unsafe and can return them. But many third-party sellers are based overseas, outside the jurisdiction of UK Trading Standards, and therefore unenforceable under UK law, as are some platforms themselves. It is too late for effective action to be taken only after the illegal and unsafe toys find their
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way into children’s hands and are identified. Currently, online marketplaces that allow thirdparties to sell products through their platforms have limited insight into (or incentive to monitor) the quality and safety of those products because of the current lack of legal accountability. Consequently, there are no systematic changes being made proactively, by government or online marketplaces, to ensure unsafe products do not make it into the hands of children. Instead, it is left to the platforms to voluntarily make changes – if they choose to do so. The BTHA is therefore urging the government to take action to protect children from the threat of physical harm by taking steps to prevent the sale of unsafe toys on online platforms, and by making the online marketplaces take some accountability for the products sold through their platforms by third-party sellers. Members of the BTHA are committed to making legally compliant, good quality toys for children to play with. Toys is already one of the most highly regulated product categories in the UK, and across Europe, and regulations cover every element of the toy, from the physical properties of the toy design to the chemical composition of materials. Making toys to these demanding standards is a legal requirement every member of the BTHA is committed to undertake, but it does come at a considerable expense - and there are unscrupulous sellers which are happy to undercut prices by making substandard and illegal toys. In an official statement, Natasha Crookes, director of Public Affairs for the BTHA, said: “It is not acceptable that unsafe and non-compliant toys are simply allowed
