Six men and one woman were sentenced to prison last year for failing to pay family maintenance, the Ministry of Home Affairs has revealed.

No one has been imprisoned for the crime in 2021. The figures were released following a parliamentary question posed by Ivan Bartolo. 

One arbitrarily failing to pay maintenance when it’s due could lead to a criminal offence in Mata, with a prison sentence of up to two months or a fine of up to two hundred euro.

Child maintenance tends to cover food, health, clothing, shelter and education.

Malta’s law requires both parents to provide for their children until they reach the age of 18 unless they continue to study on a full-time basis or suffer from a disability, in which case they are bound to maintain their children until they are 23.

According to the National Statistics Office, single-parent households with dependent children are on the rise and are more at risk of poverty and social exclusion, meaning maintenance is crucial to their development.

Child custody is often a difficult battle to fight in courts. Concerningly, a growing number of parents are being forced to be kept away from their children in Malta.

What do you think about these figures?