This special issue focuses on a crime that has been classified by the United Nations as the third most profitable crime in the world - human trafficking (Fichtelberg 2008). The international contributions in this issue cover a range of key social, economic, political and legal issues as they relate to human trafficking. The genesis for this collection evolved out of a major project led by Philip Reichel which was completed in 2007. Reichel and an international team examined Canadian and US practices of combating human trafficking. In addition, the project explored a range of initiatives used in Europe and proposed by the United Nations. Before presenting an overview of the articles, we thought it instructive to provide a synopsis of some of the fundamental issues involved in human trafficking. Our thinking was that a brief discussion of these more general, descriptive, theoretical and practical issues would provide some context for readers unfamiliar with the subject of human trafficking. (Published Abstract)