An international movement seeking to raise the issue of children being alienated from a parent has recognised Bermuda's role in trying to overcome the problem.

The Parental Alienation Awareness Organisation is seeking to declare April 25 as Parental Alienation Awareness Day and according to a report on the website Men's News Daily, it has recognised nine US states which will adopt the day as well as the Island for efforts being put into rectifying the issue.

The report says: "(We are) making progress in gaining recognition of Parental Alienation, as nine US states and the British territory of Bermuda have declared April 25 'Parental Alienation Awareness Day.'

"The Parental Alienation Awareness Organisation is looking for volunteers to ask their local Governor, MP or government officials to proclaim or officially recognise April 25th as Parental Alienation Awareness Day."

Children's advocacy group, ChildWatch, had originally called for the day to be recognised last year and Minister of Culture and Social Rehabilitation Dale Butler read out a proclamation declaring April 25 as Parental Alienation Awareness Day.

Tuesday night, ChildWatch President Eddie Fisher said about the day: "I would like for them (the community) to think about the child first and foremost and try to not put in your own personal feelings and to carry it through the year.

"The child's love, the care and the nurturing of that child, it really takes two parents and (we need to) set aside our own likes and dislikes and just to think of the child being raised in a good environment where he or she can feel loved by not one but by two of the most important people in their life."

Mr. Fisher said parents must stop engaging in the practice of "parental alienation syndrome" and added: "This is hopefully going to become a yearly event because it's so important.

"I've actually got ladies that have been calling me recently saying they have been educated about the fact that there is such a thing as parental alienation syndrome.

"And they've actually admitted to me that they've been alienating their children from their father and you just could not get a better response.

"Mothers normally get overwhelming care and control of their children to the extent that fathers often are allowed to see their children twice a month — that's every other Sunday.

"So this lends itself perfectly to alienating the child because one parent has 29 days of the month and the other has two days a month."

Sheelagh Cooper, head of the Coalition for the Protection of Children (CPC), spoke of her organisation's role in dealing with the issue.

"The CPC, as part of its range of services to parents, established the Centre for Community and Family Mediation in 1992 — our website is www.mediate.bm," she said.

"Part of the reason for offering mediation services to parents was to address the alienation that so many Bermudian fathers were experiencing from their children.

"Since then we have received and provided mediation services for more than 500 couples with children 90 percent of whom have never been married and many of whom have never had even a cohabitation arrangement, but all of whom have a child or children who need both parents both emotionally and financially.