Italy’s proposed new divorce law would turn back the clock 50 years on women’s rights, critics say

Italy’s government is pushing draft legislation that would revolutionise the country’s divorce laws, abolishing child support and taking custody away from parents who bad-mouth their exes or try to otherwise harm their relationships with their children.

The idea behind the bill, which is supported by Italy’s governing coalition and has a good chance of becoming law, is to enforce what it describes as “perfect co-parenting.”

Children of divorced couples would spend the exact same amount of time living with each parent – young children currently tend to live with their mothers – and each parent would pay for the children’s needs when taking care of them. If one parent were unable to pay, the wealthier parent would pay for those needs directly rather than writing a check to his or her ex-spouse.

The bill’s supporters contend that this would make child support obsolete, but the left-leaning opposition and women’s groups fear that the bill would harm women.

Nadia Somma, a representative of Demetra, an anti-domestic violence Centre in Turin, wrote for the newspaper Il Fatto Quotidiano that the proposed law would “turn back the clock 50 years on women’s rights.” Senator Valeria Valente of the centre-left Democratic Party said it would make “life impossible for mothers.”

In Italy’s conservative society, less than 50 per cent of women work outside of the home, and most of the burden of child-rearing falls upon mothers. Because women with children struggle to find stable employment, critics argue that the abolition of child support would raise the poverty rate among divorced mothers and could make them unable to provide for their children. Critics fear that the bill could encourage women to stay in abusive marriages rather than opting for a divorce with no child support.