Although the term ‘femicide’ was first used in England in 1801 and meant ‘the killing of a woman’, it was not included in the English dictionaries. In fact, dictionary editions of the 1980s still omitted this word. However, this term was published in the Wharton’s Law Lexicon.

The feminist activist Diana E.H. Russell narrowed the definition of femicide to “the killing of females by males because they are female”, placing emphasis on the idea that men committed femicide with a sexist motive. However, Russell’s definition is not accepted by all scholars as the standard definition.

The word ‘femiċidju’ was probably first used in Edward Attard’s book on the subject, first published in 2015 and republished in 2021.

Theodore (Ted) Bundy, the American serial killer who kidnapped, raped and murdered numerous young women during the 1970s, once said that his murders were not about lust or violence but about possession.

In Malta, the word femiċidju is not found in Aquilina’s dictionary or any other Maltese dictionary. In fact, it was probably first used in the book Il-Femiċidju f’Malta first published in 2015 and then republished in 2021.

Since 1800, 142 women have been killed in Malta. The latest murder, that of Paulina Dembska, generated anger and an outpouring of grief, compassion and solidarity with the victim.

Apart from the killing of some prostitutes, murders for sexual gratification were very rare in Malta and the case of Duminka Pace was the only one till 2021.

Duminka worked with her brothers in her father’s fields in Naxxar. In the afternoon of April 14, 1869, her brothers stopped working some time earlier than usual. Duminka went on with her work and, before leaving, she asked for some water. As the jug was empty, her brothers suggested that she should fetch some water from the well adjacent to their fields.

When Duminka did not turn up for supper by 5pm, her parents started to get worried and one of her brothers returned to the fields to fetch her. Duminka was not found and, later, other members of the Pace family went to look for her in the adjacent fields and farmhouses. One of these farmhouses was owned by the Schembris and when 24-year-old Francis Schembri was asked whether he had seen Duminka, he answered in the negative.

A well in a field similar to that where the corpse of Duminka Pace was found.

By nightfall, Duminka had not returned home and the Naxxar police were informed about the missing girl. Meanwhile, the search continued till nearly midnight with torch lamps. Early next morning, the search was resumed and a search party combed everywhere to find her.

Finally, one of her brothers suggested that they should search for their sister in the well adjacent to their fields. On reaching the well, they again met Francis Schembri and when the same question about Duminka was made to him, he was reluctant to answer. His hesitancy aroused suspicion and the police were immediately informed.

After a search in Schembri’s farmhouse, the police found a pair of trousers stained with blood. When asked about the trousers, Francis said that, some days earlier, he had spat blood on it.

When the search was resumed in the well, the lifeless body of Duminka was found. The post-mortem examination revealed that the girl had been raped and strangled.

Under police questioning, Schembri denied that he had raped or strangled the girl and kept insisting that he had not seen her. However, the police found a witness who was ready to testify that he had seen Schembri talking to the girl on April 14.

Schembri was charged with rape and murder and his trial opened on June 4, 1869. The court heard the evidence of three medical experts, two professors at the University of Malta and the police physician of Valletta, who were appointed by the court to examine the stains on the trousers of the accused.

Diane E. H. Russell’s 1992 book about femicide

The court experts said that after an examination “principally by spectroscopy and microscopy, they obtained such satisfactory results” that they felt convinced that the blood stains examined were human.

However, G. Gulia, professor of legal medicine at the university, thought that the biological sciences had not yet attained that high degree of deve­lopment as to constitute reliable and efficient certainty in distinguishing dried human blood from that of animals.

In support of his contention, Gulia quoted extensively from Swayne Taylor’s Medical Juris­prudence (London, 1858) and from works of contemporary German and French medico-legal authors. (Note: it was in 1900 that Paul Uhlenhuth disco­vered how to test blood to find out if it was human.)

A farmer testified that he had seen the girl in Schembri’s field and another witness repeated the statement he had made to the police, namely that he had seen Schembri talking to the girl near the well.

The accused was found guilty with a verdict of six against three and he was sentenced to life imprisonment.