The International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers' Unions (ICEM) has expressed concern over the increasing news of numerous cases of silicosis among jewellery migrant workers in China.

ICEM says these workers are slowly dying of an illness that they contracted through a poor working environment, compounded by a failure to provide adequate medical care.

ICEM is a rapidly growing industry-based world labour federation dedicated to practical solidarity. It unites trade unions in its sectors on all continents. Its aim is to become a truly global trade union. By October 2005, the ICEM represented 389 industrial trade unions in 122 countries.

In particular, ICEM expresses its condolences to the family of Deng Wenping, a Chinese migrant worker at a Hong Kong-invested jewellery factory in southern China who has recently died and is one of the latest victims of silicosis in the sector.

ICEM urges all employers in the jewellery industries, as well as the competent authorities in China, to pay immediate attention to the serious health and safety problems in the industry, to eliminate present dangerous conditions, and to urgently improve both medical care and the social security system.

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