UK toy group Toymaster is joining BTHA’s safety campaign ‘Don’t Toy with Children’s Safety’. It aims to promote better safety on toys sold online.
Recently BTHA found out that 58% of toys sold online don’t comply with UK’s toy safety regulations. This is quite a startling discovery and prompted the launch of the safety campaign.
“We have today asked all our members and suppliers to also write to their local MP’s asking for them to also back this campaign,” said Yogi Parmar, operations director at Toymaster to ToyNews.
BTHA found out that 58% of the toys it bought online and tested, didn’t comply with regulations. 22% of all of the tested toys were deemed unsafe and had serious issues.
“We are concerned that unsafe and illegal products are not removed fast enough and identical products remain on sale. There are gaps in the UK regulations which allow the sellers and the marketplaces to not be held to account and for unsafe toys to continue to be available to UK consumers. We call on government to close that gap before a child is seriously injured or killed by an unsafe toy”, Natasha Crookes, director of communications for the BTHA, says.
There’s now efforts underway to have the government update its rules and regulations. One of the ideas is a way to be able to remove dangerous toys from online shops and encourage better cooperation with authorities in other countries if the online shop is based elsewhere.
