inflatable jumping castles: advocacy in action

The use of the inflatable jumping castle directly resulted in the death and injury of children.
On 2007, a child was killed in Budapest, and five other children were seriously injured when the toy inflatable jumping castle was bombed more than 27 metres in the air.
In response to the death of a young girl in South Australia in 2001, Australia introduced a new standard in 2005 to manage the manufacture of commercial inflatable jumping castles.
However, this does not regulate all jumping castles classified as toys, nor does it regulate people who classify jumping castles as toys.
This facilitates some manufacturers to circumvent standards and sell unsafe equipment to consumers.
Collective data showed that as many as 2200 children were injured in Australia between 1996 and 2006.
These injuries have led to strong concern that the domestic toy jumping castle may be more dangerous and related to an increased risk of injury to children.
To address this issue, Victoria developed and launched an awareness-building campaign during July to October 2007.
This includes direct lobbying of all relevant regulators and national media to raise community awareness.
A lot of media attention has triggered the actions of national and regional consumer regulators (
ACCC, CAV and standards in Australia)
They all started an internal investigation and issued a public warning notice to intervene and informed that specialized standards would be prepared.
This presentation will discuss the issues and methods behind the campaign, as well as the future impact on child safety advocacy.