By Xie Liangbin
Nation, page 12
Issue 525
Jun 27, 2011
Translated by Song Chunling
Original article:[Chinese]

“We are deeply distressed and ask sincerely for forgiveness,” reads the text message on Gong Chang’s mobile phone. It was sent three years ago on behalf of Sanlu, and another 21 diary businesses, whose melamine-contaminated milk had caused babies to develop gallstones.

The woman, who asks to be called Gong Chang instead of her real name, holds out her phone as she shows the message. “I kept them all,” she says, smiling bitterly as she tries to hold back tears.

Parents’ choice: compensation or litigation

After Sanlu’s crimes were exposed, parents were given a choice of two documents to sign “A Letter to Parents of the Baby Patients”  and the “Registration Form to Refuse Compensation”, The first was a compensation agreement. The second said “since the babies are seriously ill and the one-off compensation insufficient and unacceptable. I refuse to sign my name and will take proceedings according to law.”

By the end of 2010, 271,869 families had accepted one-off compensation of 2,000 yuan from China Dairy Industry Association. 30,000 families had refused.

Gong’s case

Gong’s youngest son was born in July, 2007. He drank Sanlu’s milk from the age of three months until September 11, 2008 when the melamine scandal was made public. Eight days later, doctors found a kidney stone inside him.

Gong refused the compensation offer. She was one of the six plaintiffs at the people’s court of Xinhua district in Hebei Province. She refused the government’s one-off compensation offer.

Like most of the mothers whose children developed gallstones because of contaminated milk, Gong can’t afford legal fees. She needs a certificate in order to qualify for state support, but the Hebei court told Gong that she would have to apply in her hometown.

Eventually, the case was registered at a court in Daxing district, Beijing. It was due to go to trial a year later, but was then postponed indefinitely without an explanation.

 Another melamine-related case was finally heard in Beijing last November -the first time a court had ruled on alternative compensation - but the judgement noted that Sanlu is bankrupt and could pay compensation to ordinary creditors. The plaintiffs later tried to bring proceedings against Sanlu’s liquidators, but the case still hasn't been heard.

 Gong says there are mainly two sources of the rescue money: one is the fund from the committee of caring for the next generation and donations from enterprises, and the other is the mutual help between parents of the baby patients. Normally when one parent asks for help in the QQ group, all the parents in the group will donate money.

Gong is seeking economic compensation of about 16,000 yuan and compensation for emotional damages of one yuan. She says that families who agreed to the 2,000 yuan one-off compensation had no undersdtanding of the long-term damage from melamine. 

Many of the parents whose children drank contaminated milk complain that they have been forgotten. Relevant keywords are blocked on some search sites.