Dr Carrie Pemberton Ford

Dr Carrie Pemberton Ford is an Expert Witness for the UK Courts, working across international boundaries, with particular expertise in Albania, Romania, Nigeria and Vietnam, asylum claims, sex & labour trafficking, as well as trafficking for criminalisation & retail. In her role as Executive Director of IbixInsight, she is instrumental in developing training for others in expert witness work.

Her article, “The role of the Expert Witness in the UK courts”, is published in the Modern-Day Slavery Handbook ed: Maria Kapardis (Palgrave 2024).

In her day-to-day endeavours, Carrie undertakes strategic lead and principal investigator roles in research and consultation for a range of international and national law enforcement agencies and financial institutions, including: past contracts with the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO), the United Nations Institute for Training & Research (UNITAR), the United Nations Organisation Office on Drugs & Crime (UNODC) and the African Development Bank. Moreover, she is an Advisory Board Member for EU Projects working on Protection & Recovery in trafficking, and a former Women’s National Commissioner (UK Government). She is known for transforming “good ideas” into policy, and for being a formidable advocate, ally and speaker for gender-based violence, EDI and trafficking-related issues.

Previously, Carrie fulfilled the role of Religious Manager within the UK immigration removal estate, founding the Not-for-Sale movement and lobbying Parliament. She pioneered a dialogue on counter-trafficking within civil society via a CHASTE roundtable on safe-housing and building faith-based and voluntary sector safe-housing (which involved the Medaille Trust, the Salvation Army and Housing 4 Women). In addition, she developed a trafficking curricula, and taught across Eastern and Central European police forces and NGOs, as well as European and African Universities.

She is currently a Senior Assessor for the UK College of Policing, devising senior training products; the Chair of Ethics and the Scientific Board of ethical development startup www.egregor.net; and the convenor, curator and Executive Lead of the annual Cambridge Centre for Applied Research in Human Trafficking symposium – presenting leading-edge themes in trafficking for law enforcement, the academy, trauma therapists, policy advisers and front-line support workers.

A powerful advocate for human rights, trauma-informed investigations and amplification of the survivor voice – and an Advisory Board Member of the EU-funded Voice Over Project – Carrie is a much sought-after public speaker, having appeared at TED Cambridge (2016), Roost Nigeria, Romanian American University Bucharest and Excel Centre (2019).

She possesses a profound commitment to collaboration, and welcomes requests for assistance from legal and policy sectors. With her work rooted in empathetic and trust-building skills for those caught in immobilising conflict, Carrie’s restless spirit combines with her creative and problem-solving approach – with the UN VIVA translation tool being just one of her innovations – all in the service of social justice.