JA2012 - Cords and Drawstrings 2

The Activity Cords and Drawstrings will follow up on the Joint Action from 2008-2010 coordinated by PROSAFE on the same subject. The activity will address cords and drawstrings in clothes for small children (0 – 7 years), older children (7 – 14 years) and in disguise costumes for children.

Background

There is a general concern among experts in child safety about cords and drawstrings because they present a risk for strangulation to children. The accidents appear to be very serious in most cases. Additionally, the first PROSAFE joint action showed a very high number of children's clothes with cords and drawstring in them. Since then it has become apparent that disguise costumes for children may share some of the same issues with long cords and drawstrings. The risk arising from children wearing these clothes may be even higher than for ordinary clothes as disguise costumes are more likely to be worn during play.

Objectives

• To develop best practices and exchange with carrying out market surveillance activities for cords and drawstrings;
• To help ensure that children’s clothing placed on the EU market are safe with regard to cords and drawstrings;
• To follow-up the previous Joint Action on Cords and Drawstrings from 2008 to see if the improvements from then has remained;
• To further share and develop the tools and best practices that were developed in the previous Joint Action;
• To gain experience with following up a market surveillance activity which will be especially important in light of the movement towards establishing a multi-annual European level market surveillance programme.

Activities

Four meetings will be organised in this project, where the participants will be invited to share experiences and best practices and to discuss problems encountered during the inspections. Laboratory testing is not planned for in this activity, but it is envisaged that an expert in textile testing will be invited for the two first meetings to train the participants in the necessary testing and to discuss the problems and best practices the participants have encountered during the work.

Final Technical Report
Please click on the picture to download a copy of the final technical report. The report gives an overview of the activities done throughout this particular project, highlighting not only the test results but also the recommendations and conclusions which can be found at the end of this report.