Keeping kids safe with a new international guide from IEC and ISO

Keeping kids safe with a new international guide from IEC and ISO

Geneva, Switzerland, 2015-01-28 - We all want kids to be safe, yet more than 830 000 children die needlessly each year from injuries and accidents that could have been prevented (1). What to do? A new international guide from the IEC and ISO is here to help.

Road accidents, falls, electrocution, burns and drownings are some of the key causes of fatal injuries to children, and while children's toys and other children's products are obvious potential sources of risk, there are many other hidden dangers in products or situations they encounter.

The newly-revised ISO/IEC Guide 50:2014, Safety aspects -- Guidelines for child safety in standards and other specifications addresses child safety everywhere, providing guidance to standards developers by describing an extensive list of hazards children might encounter and proposing strategies to avoid them. The Guide applies to standards related to anything a child could come across, such as devices, products of all kinds, packaging, structures, installations and built environments.

ISO/IEC Guide 50 also describes specific characteristics of children that make them more vulnerable to hazards, taking into account children's different development stages and the ways they interact with devices, products and environments.

Guide 50 is not just for standards developers: government agencies, manufacturers and consumer associations will also find it useful.

This Guide was prepared by a Joint Working Group of the IEC Advisory Committee on Safety (ACOS) and the ISO Committee on Consumer Policy (COPOLCO).

ISO/IEC Guide 50:2014 is available from the IEC Webstore here.

LINK:	http://www.iec.ch/newslog/2015/nr0715.htm...
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