Under Italian law, every parent/spouse has to respect the constitutional requirement of maintenance, care, education, instruction and assistance of parents for children.
When parents split up, the Court pronouncing the separation fixes the measure and the way each of them must contribute and establishes the right to receive from the other spouse what is necessary for the other’s retention, who does not have adequate own income, for the spouse to whom the separation is not chargeable (Article 337- ter, article 156 Italian Civil Code).
The Italian law offers various coercive instruments to those entitled in relation to the spouse who escapes the obligation to maintain the children and the other spouse, established as a result of separation or divorce.
The non-fulfillment of the obligation to maintain has both civil implications, by the remedies provided for in art. 156 c.c. and by the general provisions on execution, and criminal consequences with the application of art. 570 c.p.