SAFETY OF THE CHILDREN’S SHOES
Problem of product safety, in particular safety of children’s shoes, which are imported into domestic market has been considered. The objective necessity of forming the obligatory requirements for children’s shoes due to the current state of the footwear market, which is characterized by the fall in domestic production and increased imports of dubious quality and safety products, has been proved. The condition of the children’s footwear market in Ukraine is affected by the absence of proper level of state sanitary-epidemiological surveillance, which is conducted to prevent, detect, reduce or eliminate the harmful effects of hazards and application of legal action on violators. It was found out that ISO/IEC 2 directives "Standardization and related activities. General Dictionary" defines obligatory requirements as the requirements of regulations to be indispensably implemented by all enterprises and individuals-entrepreneurs in order to achieve compliance with this document. Scientific classification of consumer properties of children’s shoes and their performance and safety characteristics range has been developed, based on which requirements should be established in the relevant technical regulations. The basic document for the development of technical regulations for leather and footwear industry products has to become Directive № L 057 of 05.03.1999. According to the classification of shoe materials properties, requirements for them are formulated, thus it is offered to check for compliance primarily shoe materials and not ready shoes, because during its production far fewer chemical materials are used. The necessity of evaluating shoe textile and leather materials domestic production for compliance to the safety standards of the International Association of ecological textiles research and testing (ECO-TEST) has been substantiated. The problem of forming compulsory requirements for children shoes and some practical aspects of the consumers (children) safety must be decided considering the state of technical regulations in Ukraine. The draft of TR should contain the information about conditions of safe shoes storage and wear, which will help to avoid the risk of a negative impact on a child’s health.