Bermuda has fallen into line with the Hague Convention on child abduction which protects `tug-of-love' children snatched by a parent and taken to another country. The House of Assembly yesterday passed a new child protection law designed to give courts on the Island the teeth to enforce custody and care orders made by overseas courts. Health and Family Services Minister Wayne Furbert said: "This is a very important piece of legislation. "It's set up to protect children who may be abducted either from or to Bermuda and sets up a mechanism where the countries can act together.'' He added: "It encourages states to act very quickly when a country is notified by an applicant, the central authority, in our case the Attorney General, to ensure the abducted child is returned very quickly.'' Mr. Furbert added the legislation was needed against a background of an increase in divorces generally. And he pointed out that Bermuda also has a sizable proportion of the population from overseas -- increasing the risk of child snatches when a marriage goes sour. He said: "It could become a major problem in Bermuda if it's not tackled. Now we have articles we can follow in these cases.'' Earlier Minister without Portfolio Kim Young said: "This is protection for our children.'' And she added: "Abduction of children to somewhere that they are not familiar with can have a terrible impact on them.'' She added that according to US experts, there were 350,000 child abductions by one or the other parent in the US every year, with 163,000 of the youngsters being taken abroad. Ms Young said: "It isn't a vast number here yet, but this does go from country to country.'' Shadow Community and Cultural Affairs Minister Paula Cox said her party supported the Act because it provided for the protection of "those who are prisoners of war -- warring parents''. "How could the Opposition not be supportive ,'' she added. "But we would have liked to have seen the whole convention put into law, not just sections. The Premier Pamela Gordon explained that Bermuda did not adopt the entire convention because it choose to utilise the articles of the convention that were "beneficial'' to the local community. Mr. Furbert pointed out that some of the articles were not substantive and just administrative. And Youth and Sport Minister John Barritt explained that the Act mirrored the UK's legislation on the issue. "We are enacting law, not adopting a convention,'' he said. "Bermuda itself is not a signatory to the convention. "When the UK adopted it, they translated it into law,'' he added.

"And it is the same as what we have here today. We mirror the UK law.'' But Shadow Minister of Legislative and Women's Issues Lois Brown-Evans argued that the international convention should have been made an annex to the Act so that "normal'' Bermudians could make sense of the legislation. While debating the Act in Committee, Shadow Health and Family Services Minister Renee Webb questioned if the Act's provision for the courts to rule on individual abduction cases within six-weeks was too "ambitious''. Ms Webb also posed questions regarding article 13 of the Act which allows children who had obtained a certain age or level of maturity to decide whether they wish to stay or return to their home country. "At what age is a child considered mature,'' she asked? "Is it a discretionary thing?'' Government House Leader Quinton Edness said the six-week time frame for courts to rule on cases was part of the international conditions attached to adopting the convention. "In matters having to do with child abduction the courts will have to move fast, it's one of the conditions of adopting the convention.'' He said that if the matter was not settled in six-weeks, a country could ask Bermuda for a reason why the case was being delayed. "So to avoid embarrassment you have to move fast,'' Mr. Edness added. "It's one of the costs when you sign on.'' And he said that the courts would decide whether a child was of age and maturity to make a decision on their residency. PHOTO Paula Cox -- `Protect children of war'