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10 July, 2006
The campaign to totally ban all forms of asbestos took a leap ahead last month when the Workers’ Group of the ILO Conference passed a decisive statement that all asbestos types, including white chrysotile, are cancer-causing.
The ICEM’s Mining/DGOJP Sector is currently initiating dialogue with mining affiliates on the correct path toward implementation of ILO Convention 162, the safety in the use of asbestos convention. This is in accord with the four-year work plan established at the ICEM’s Mining and DGOJP World Conferences in 2004.
Last month’s resolution at the annual ILO Conference states “that the elimination of the future use of asbestos and the identification and proper management of asbestos currently in place means to protect workers from asbestos exposure and to prevent future asbestos-related diseases and deaths.” It also supports elimination on any future use of the product, and calls for renewed efforts toward ratification by countries of ILO Conventions 162 and 139, the latter related to occupational cancer.
The resolution was boosted some two weeks before its 14 June ILO passage when France became the 40th country to ban future asbestos use. South Africa, a leading mining nation, also is close to passing a complete ban on white asbestos mining, something Zimbabwe’s government is fiercely resisting due to sizeable exports of the product to South Africa.
Major producing countries of white chrysotile asbestos include Canada, Russia, Brazil, China and Zimbabwe. The amphibole asbestos types, blue amosite asbestos and brown crocidolite asbestos, are proven to cause asbestos-related respiratory diseases and are banned under World Health Organisation guidelines.