A national study into honour abuse has been recognised for its research impact by a national publisher.

The article, Honour-based violence in a British South Asian community, has been named as one of the winners of the 2019 Emerald Literati Awards for Excellence.

Published in the journal Safer Communities, it was co-written by Dr Roxanne Khan and Shamam Saleem from the University of Central Lancashire (UCLan), alongside Dr Michelle Lowe from the University of Bolton. 

The awards are one of the largest, independent award schemes led by a publisher. Established to celebrate and reward the outstanding contributions made by Emerald’s scholarly community, these awards help strengthen the impact of the winning research and support the author’s scholarly journey by providing the recognition and international kudos they deserve. 

The article was recognised in the Outstanding and Highly Commended category, which “rewards the most impressive pieces of work published throughout the previous year.”

The purpose of the paper is to explore attitudes towards, and victimisation experiences, of honour-based violence in a reportedly vulnerable population in the UK.

Dr Roxanne Khan is a senior psychology lecturer at UCLan and Director of the Honour Abuse Research Matrix (HARM), which acts as a think-tank for government agencies and charities to help them plug the gaps in services that provide specialist support for victims of honour-based abuse.

She said: “Honour violence is a silent public health crisis, both in the UK and worldwide. A lack of quality research on the subject means that policies and practices aimed at tackling or preventing this crisis are often based on scant evidence. HARM addresses this problem with high quality research and sustainable evidence-based training.”

Sally Wilson, Head of Publishing at Emerald, said: “We understand the hard work and commitment that goes into writing and reviewing high quality research papers. At Emerald, we pride ourselves on supporting our author and reviewer community along their research journey. 

“Therefore, it is an honour to be able to celebrate and give global recognition to those who have made a significant impact within their field. We would like to congratulate all of this year’s winners, all of which have been selected based on their research excellence, rigour and relevance.”  

In addition, Dr Khan was the guest editor for a special issue of the Journal of Aggression, Conflict and Peace Research on honour-based abuse, violence, and killings and an article from this, Perception and barriers: reporting female genital mutilation, was also selected by the editorial team as an Outstanding Paper in the 2019 Emerald Literati Awards.

Dr Khan added: “I am proud of the work our members and ambassadors do. It is a pleasure to receive these two awards from Emerald Publishing for our work on this paper as well as the special edition.” 

Honour-based violence in a British South Asian community is available to view here.