It premiered in the United States on Lifetime Television on October 24 and 25, 2005 and was broadcast in Canada on Citytv on January 2 and 3, 2006.

In Prague, Czech Republic, single mother Helena (Isabelle Blais) is seduced by a successful, handsome man and travels with him to spend a weekend in Vienna, Austria.

He then sells her to a human trafficking ring and she is brought to New York City to work as a sex slave.

In Kyiv, Ukraine, sixteen-year-old Nadia (Laurence Leboeuf) enters a modelling competition, without her father's knowledge.

In Manila, Philippines, twelve-year-old American tourist Annie Gray (Sarah-Jeanne Labrosse) is abducted in front of her mother in a busy street by sex traffickers.

She is forced into a child brothel which primarily services sex tourists, overseen by an Australian man, Tommy.

She tells Kate about her daughter in Prague, who is successfully rescued by Czech police before Karpovich's men can abduct her.

He locates details of the modelling agency and infiltrates the organisation by bonding with one of Karpovich's men.

However, Tommy is warned by a local police officer on the take and Annie and the other children are smuggled out just in time.

Human Trafficking closes with images of people walking through crowded city streets, as a closing title caption announces that human trafficking is the third-most profitable criminal business in the world, with as many as 800,000 victims each year.

Alessandra Stanley of the New York Times noted that Human Trafficking "avoids the seedy sensationalism that cheapens so many television depictions of the crime" and that it is "a harsh public-service message built into a clever, suspenseful thriller.

"[3] Tom Shales of The Washington Post was more negative as he found the miniseries an odd subject for Lifetime to broadcast.