Will Sarmiento
Richmond speaks with Human Trafficking Institute Douglass Fellows in 2017. The fellowship, named for abolitionist Frederick Douglass, trains top U.S. law students to be leaders in the global anti-human-trafficking movement and provides resources to those already in the fight.
elsewhere. Furthermore, the International Labor Organization reports that traffickers exploit 77 percent of all victims in their country of residence. It’s a crime that often takes place in plain sight because victims fear asking for help, something their traffickers count on. “It all comes down to whether you believe people have inherent value. If you get to a point where you believe that people don’t have worth, you can treat them like a commodity,” Richmond said. “To see individuals up close who are choosing trafficking and who are making an intentional choice to devalue somebody and take their most basic freedoms is stunning.” Richmond, who grew up in Yorktown, Virginia, had little knowledge of the problem when he entered Mary Washington as a freshman in fall 1989. He originally chose to focus his studies on political science, but he kept taking geography courses because the professors were so
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UNIVERSITY OF MARY WASHINGTON MAGAZINE FALL/WINTER 2019
entertaining – both in and out of the classroom. Richmond recalled a snowball fight with the late Professor Richard Palmieri around the fountain in front of Monroe Hall, an area now named Palmieri Plaza. The combination of political science and geography courses, as well as a history course with noted civil rights giant James Farmer, opened his mind to some of the challenges people faced around the world. After graduating with degrees in political science and geography, he worked for an insurance company for two years, shepherding families through rebuilding their lives after house fires. He then headed to Wake Forest University, where he earned a law degree in 1998 before spending four years handling commercial litigation for a law firm in Roanoke. Around that time, a friend urged him to read Good News About Injustice: A Witness of Courage in a Hurting World by Gary Haugen. Haugen