The fifth in the series of Wirt Ghawdex talks will be by Vanessa Buhagia and focus on the prosecution of rape in eighteenth-century Malta.

In this lecture, Vanessa Buhagiar will investigate how the concept of rape was understood, presented, and prosecuted in court in eighteenth-century Malta by analysing the documentation of numerous cases heard in the courts and reported across Malta and Gozo.

Insights into the experiences, narratives, and understandings of ‘rape’ of an early eighteenth- century society will be explored.

In recent years public debate in Malta has deliberated about issues like female reproductive rights, institutionalised misogyny, and not least violence against women. This has been fuelled by a growing coverage by the media of cases such as femicide, and has sparked changes on the legislative level, such as with the introduction of ‘femicide’ to the criminal code.

This shift in discourse has oftentimes been accompanied by a growing interest in the history of violence against women in Malta. However, research on this front has so far been limited, especially with regards to Malta’s early modern period.

Vanessa Buhagiar is the Assistant Director of the Notarial Registers Archive and the Secretary of the Notarial Archives Foundation. A trained paleographer, her research interests include cultural history, Malta during the early modern period, and the humanistic script and its manifestation in Malta.

She graduated with Distinction from King’s College London with an M.A. in Early Modern History in 2020. Since 2025, she is also the Secretary of Wirt Ghawdex.

The talk, which will be delivered in English, is taking place on on Friday, the 16th of May at 6.30pm, at St Cecilia Chapel, Ghajnsielem

After the talk there will be time for questions from the audience and discussion. APS Bank is sponsoring our series of talks while Delicata Winery are kindly sponsoring the events’ post-talk drinks.

Free registration is suggested through this link.

Wirt Ghawdex is a voluntary non-governmental organisation founded in 1981 with the aims of fostering the knowledge of our heritage among all levels of society and to strive to safeguard the natural, archaeological, historical and anthropological patrimony of the islands of Gozo and Comino

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