From China for your kids: toys that can kill

Venkatesan Vembu & Anandita Chatterjee

HONG KONG/ MUMBAI: Three-year-old Surya Chawla in Delhi’s upmarket Defence Colony is suffering from acute toy deprivation. His mum, Anita, has locked up all his toys, including the spanking new Thomas & Friends train set she gifted him for his recent birthday. And he can’t understand why.

“How can I explain to a three-year-old that his made-in-China toys are probably coated with lead paint, which can cause cancer?” fumes a fretful Anita. “Ever since I heard about the recall of Thomas train toys in the US, I’ve been going over Surya’s toys: they’re almost all made in China, and I don’t know the first thing about how unsafe they may be for him.”

Anita’s fears aren’t overstated. Just last fortnight, the US Consumer Product Safety Commission announced a recall of over 1.5 million Thomas & Friends toys after they were found to have been coated with lead paint at the factory in southern China where they were manufactured. Consumers in the US were asked to stop using the recalled products since lead ingestion can cause cancer and damage brain cells in children.  

The scare over lead-coated toys is the latest in a string of horror stories linked to China’s “low-cost” exports flooding markets in India and across the world. Every one of the 24 kinds of toys recalled for safety reasons in the US this year was made in China. Nor is it only about toys: there have been reports of tainted pet foods, toothpaste, medicines and foodstuff — all originating from China.

While the regulatory agencies in developed countries are sounding the alert on these lethal exports, in India there hasn’t been the faintest whisper of governmental action to protect consumers. Are Indian kids, a market overrun by cheap Chinese toy imports, being put at serious health risk from China-manufactured toys without adequate regulatory supervision?

Says Toy Association of India (TAI) president Paresh Chawla, “Chinese toys are cheap and, therefore, popular, but given their low quality, they are unsafe for children. The paint and the material used on most Chinese toys are a health hazard, but the Rs2,500 crore Indian toy market is unregulated.” Chinese toys that don’t measure up to the exacting safety standards of the West are dumped in India, he adds as a cautionary note to parents.

An investigation last year by environmental NGO Toxic Links detected high levels of cancer-causing lead and cadmium in polyvinyl chloride (PVC) toys sold in India. “Imported toys being sold in Mumbai too were among the samples tested,” says Toxic Links’ Mumbai programme coordinator Kishore Wankhede. The problem, he points out, is that in India there aren’t any laws that govern quality of materials that can be used in toy manufacture. “Therefore, when China exports lead-laced toys here, it isn’t breaking any Indian law — because we don’t have any laws on this!”

Imports, mostly from China,  account for nearly 75 per cent of the toy market here, says Priya Shaikh, CEO of Plastech International, which manufactures and markets toys under the BUDDYZ brand name. China’s manufacturing capacity and pricing power are critical factors, she points out. It’s also a threat to the domestic toymaking industry, Shaikh adds.

Chinese toys are available at throwaway prices, which appeal to the use-and-throw culture that’s gaining currency in India. “Toys are not about durability, they are meant to be used and thrown, and so Chinese goods, which come cheap but laden with fancy features are popular with our customers,” says Ketan Gada, director at Mitashi Edutainment, which imports TV video games, educational computers and hand video games from mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan. “Chinese manufacturers offer us cheaper rates and better quality.”

The problem in India is compounded by the presence of a huge grey market in Chinese goods, including toys. TAI’s Chawla estimates that over 80 per cent of Chinese toys sold in India are in the grey market. Kadir Khatri, floor manager at Souvenirs, a 47-year-old toyshop in Mumbai, confirms the presence of a vibrant grey market for Chinese goods, but says the goods sold there are of markedly inferior quality. Adds Gada, “Most of the toy imports are through ‘secondary channels’. These operators don’t pay import duties or octroi, which is also why they can sell at far cheaper rates.”

But consumers around the world — including India — are paying a high price for these ‘cheap’ Chinese goods, says Dr Peter Navarro, professor at the Paul Merage School of Business at the University of California, Irvine, and author of The Coming China Wars. “Chinese products are not safe. There’s no way that you can look at them and determine that they’re safe because they might contain toxins you are unaware of.” The problem, adds Navarro, is that China’s economy “is growing much faster than its regulatory structure. For all practical purposes, it has no regulatory structure. And the few regulations it has often get co-opted by corrupt officials.”

Far away from China, at Manoj Stores in Mumbai, which stocks the Thomas train sets (price Rs 975 to Rs 3,500), proprietor Manoj Gala proudly unveils his latest inventory of toys. “These trains are extremely popular with kids; we sell about 15 pieces a month,” he says. “The costliest of the lot is the Special Anniversary Edition that we got two months back. It’s called the Steam Along Thomas Set and it has a ‘safe steam effect’ that supposedly comes from fuel inside.”

Snazzy as these new toys may be, it’s unlikely that Anita Chawla will be buying Surya any made-in-China toys for a long time. But countless other children across India may even at this minute be playing deadly games with lethal, made-in-China toys. Who knows what metals and toxins they are ingesting?