by Harriet Wistrich
Who was Emma Humphreys and what are we celebrating?
On 9 February 2024 we will be celebrating the 25th anniversary of the Emma Humphreys Memorial Prize (EHMP). Each year since the untimely death of Emma in 1998 prizes of £1,000 are awarded to an individual and/or group who has raised awareness of male violence against women through writing and campaigning. Five years ago the EHMP teamed up with Centre for Women’s Justice so that one of the awards would be given to a woman who had brought an important legal challenge or campaign.
Activism and campaigning around male violence against women is not glamourous, it is often tireless and sometimes traumatising, but ultimately it can provide hope. The purpose of the prize is to celebrate the work of survivors and activists who have gone above and beyond through an annual awards ceremony aimed at recognising, remembering and rewarding the often unsung heroines who make a difference.
The idea of the prize was conceived following the death Emma Humphreys in July 1998 by Jalna Hanmer, a lifelong feminist scholar and activist who died earlier this year aged 91. Emma died aged only 30 following an accidental overdose of chloral hydrate, a drug known as the ‘chemical cosh’, that she had become addicted to during 10 years imprisonment following her conviction for the murder of her violent pimp boyfriend, Trevor Armitage.
Emma’s life from a very young age was blighted by male violence, from child sexual abuse, to horrific domestic violence at home; from repeatedly running from home and being sexually exploited by older men in prostitution and pornography, to meeting Armitage on the streets of Nottingham when she was 16. He posed as her boyfriend, then pimped her out and subjected her to repeated rape and violence. In 1985, aged only 17, Emma stabbed and killed the older boyfriend to forestall yet another threatened rape. At trial, represented by an all male legal team, she found it impossible to give evidence in her own defence, so was convicted of murder and sentenced to be detained at “Her Majesty’s Pleasure”. Prison was tough and Emma became a habitual self-harmer with a serious eating disorder, though she found solace through creativity and an enlightened prison education programme at Holloway Prison where she expressed powerfully many thoughts and feelings through poetry.
In 1992, having seen the widespread media coverage of the cases of Sara Thornton and Kiranjit Ahluwalia, Emma wrote to Justice for Women eloquently describing the injustice she had experienced and seeking help to appeal the murder conviction. As a young feminist campaigner, I had co-founded Justice for Women and when approached by Emma, we found a lawyer who said he would take her case on if one of us volunteered to work with Emma on uncovering her full history. I rose to the challenge and through that route decided to train as a lawyer. Over three years we built up the campaign and legal case until July 1995, when the criminal appeal court quashed Emma’s murder conviction and in their judgment created a legal precedent that recognised the concept of cumulative provocation.
Following her release from prison, Emma campaigned for other women in prison and spoke at events and in the media around her experiences of male violence including the exploitation of women in prostitution. However, the legacy of victimisation and abuse, of incarceration and institutionalisation, meant Emma found it hard to survive on the outside. She went off the rails and was again exploited by men, although eventually she was housed by social services and her life began to settle down. Emma continued to rely on heavy medication to cope with traumatic memories and in July 1998, not long after her 30th birthday, she tragically died from an accidental overdose.
At a memorial event we held for Emma, a few months after her death, we presented the first Emma Humphreys Memorial Prize to Fiona Broadfoot, a survivor of prostitution who had met Emma before her death. Fiona had begun to speak out powerfully of her own experiences of being exploited in prostitution and, in fact, continues to do so today.
Since that first award, the EHMP have invited nominations each year for the award and held an annual event to which shortlisted nominees and prize-winners have been invited. It’s less a competition and more an opportunity to highlight different issues that nominees have worked around arising from male violence against women including rape, domestic violence, stalking, honour killings, pornography and sexual exploitation, issues of state failures and violence and misogyny in the criminal justice system.
Some of the previous prize winners have included Comfort Momoh, a public health specialist who campaigns against female genital mutilation; ‘Sana’, an asylum seeker detained at Yarl’s Wood who brought a claim arising from her sexual assault by a male staff member; Afsana Lachaux who, after losing custody of her child in Dubai, campaigns against Sharia law; ‘Daisy’ who has campaigned for legal recognition of children born of rape; Freya, a victim of police perpetrated domestic abuse, who spearheaded the police super-complaint and Pauline Campbell who campaigned around women’s prisons after her daughter, Sarah, took her own life.
Group prize winners have included amongst others, Mothers of Sexually Abused Children, Scottish Women against Pornography, DeafHope, Million Women Rise and Yes Matters. We also occasionally award International prizes to highlight particular work of groups such as Stigamot in Iceland for their innovative feminist campaigning against sexual violence, the Revolutionary Association of Women of Afghanistan, the Feminist Dalit Association from Nepal and SPACE international, a survivor based group raising awareness of the harms in prostitution.
Jalna Hamner, whose feminist activism and study of male violence against women spanned over 50 years since the women’s liberation movement began its second wave, came up with the idea of the prize. It was one of a dazzling array of feminist projects and campaigns that Jalna dreamed up or helped instigate and establish from the Women’s Aid Federation, to the first International Conference on Violence Against Women, to the Kerb Crawlers Rehabilitation scheme. She also created the first MA in women’s studies at Bradford University and wrote extensively about violence against women, policing and related issues.
On 9 February we shall be celebrating Jalna’s life as well as the Emma Humphreys Memorial Prize. We will be inviting past nominees and winners as well as awarding prizes to this year’s winners. Join us for food, fun and fortitude as we gear up for new challenges in 2024, and celebrate activism and the lives of those who have contributed to our rich history.