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Anti-asbestos activists called for a worldwide ban on the hazardous building material at rally this week in Turin, Italy where an international trial on asbestos-related disease is underway.

Members of the International Ban Asbestos Network urged a ban on the mineral fiber that is still widely used in developing countries such as India, Mexico and much of Asia. They demanded “an end to impunity” for companies responsible for the worldwide catastrophe of asbestos.

Sanjiv Pandita, head of Ban Asbestos branch in Asia, said it made no sense that asbestos was still used because it killed people and it was only greed that motivated it.

The objective of the rally was to highlight the global epidemic of asbestos-related diseases such mesothelioma, a cancer of the lining of the lungs, that have that has coincided with the use of asbestos. According to the World Health Organization, about 90,000 people died each year of asbestos-related lung cancer, mesothelioma and asbestosis after inhaling asbestos fibers in factories, mines and other workplaces. The WHO says the epidemic of asbestos-related disease is still on the rise because the diesease symptoms typically take decades to appear after exposure. The WHO has recommended banning asbestos.

In the ongoing trial, two former top officers of a Swiss building materials company Eternit face criminal charges and a class-action civil lawsuit for alleged negligence in the deaths of more than 2,000 people of asbestos-related disease in Italy.

The victims—who include former employees as well as residents of four Italian cities where the company had factories—allege that many illnesses and deaths were caused by exposure to asbestos in Eternit’s building products such as insulation. Proscecutors say the former Eternit workers and residents of nearby towns had unusually high rates of cancer caused by asbestos dust in the air and Eternit products used in paving. The victims are expected to seek several hundred million euros in compensataion.

According to a press release, International Ban Asbestos said that Enternit had opened the first large scale asbestos mine in Brazil in the 1960s, helping Brazil become the third largest producer of asbestos. The Belgian Eternit group also dominated asbestos markets in Peru and through Asia. Asbestos is banned in Europe and strictly regulated in the United States.

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