Abstract. Let EHM be Nori's category of effective homological mixed motives. In this paper, we consider the thick abelian subcategory EHM 1 ⊂ EHM generated by the i-th relative homology of pairs of varieties for i ∈ {0, 1}. We show that EHM 1 is naturally equivalent to the abelian category t M 1 of 1-motives with torsion; this is our main theorem. Along the way, we obtain several interesting results. Firstly, we realize t M 1 as the universal abelian category obtained, using Nori's formalism, from the Betti representation of an explicit diagram of curves. Secondly, we obtain a conceptual proof of a theorem of Vologodsky on realizations of 1-motives. Thirdly, we verify a conjecture of Deligne on extensions of 1-motives in the category of mixed realizations for those extensions that are effective in Nori's sense.