Children's clothing: when they can represent a danger

"We notice on these shorts for a little boy that the drawstrings at the waist are much too long. They could get caught in a playground."

It is clear that it is often the cords that could lead to accident risks, generally because of their length. But you also have to pay attention to how these cords end. Thus, in the FPS Economy report, we read that the investigators spotted a garment whose "hood cords had a protruding loop (risk of entanglement) and the tips (or blocking devices) used to adjust the size of the cords were not attached to the garment (risk of injury)."

The 39 garments analyzed and checked did not present the same risk of severity:

• 29 presented a serious risk,

• 2 presented a high risk,

• 1 presented a low risk and

• 7 complied with the requirements checked.

And the investigation bore fruit since we can read in this same report that "for 24 of these garments presenting a serious risk, the producers took the necessary measures and proceeded to withdraw from the market and recall the garments concerned from consumers.”

The conclusion of this survey may send shivers down your spine since it has been noted that 4 out of 5 items of clothing checked were not compliant. But Etienne Mignolet is keen to qualify this result: "It's an impressive figure but it does not reflect the Belgian market in general. It would be wrong to say that 4 out of 5 children's clothes do not meet safety standards in Belgium. But on an initial visual check we did, we spotted some garments that we thought were problematic and further testing confirmed this.”