Loss of seven Chinese students in the quake will be magnified for their parents because of the one-child policy, says official
New Zealand should consider special compensation to parents of Chinese students killed in an earthquake last month because their loss was magnified under the country's one-child policy, a Chinese official has said.
Seven students from China have been identified among the 166 people confirmed dead in the quake that devastated Christchurch city on 22 February, and as many as 20 others are still missing.
A Chinese embassy official, Cheng Lei, said on Monday that Chinese quake victims had lost not just their only child, but also a future breadwinner.
He said New Zealand should consider providing additional financial assistance to those families.
'You can expect how lonely, how desperate they are ... not only from losing loved ones, but losing almost entirely the major source of economic assistance after retirement,' Cheng told Radio New Zealand.
Such compensation would be consolation for the families of the victims 'but also a demonstration of the importance the New Zealand government attaches' to the Chinese international students, he said.
New Zealand's tertiary education minister, Steven Joyce, said insurance and other payments were being made to survivors and relatives of victims of the quake, but that it would be difficult under New Zealand law to provide special compensation to one group of victims.
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