What would you do to save the person you love? Do you have what it takes? Do you think you can make all the right choices? 

 

JPP’s latest interactive project “This Is (Not) A Game” is a multifaceted campaign that follows the story of a woman thrown into the intricate web of Pakistan’s criminal justice system, after her husband’s arrest late one night. The campaign engages audiences on various platforms making them enact the perspective of this central female character, who is faced with difficult decisions in her journey to set her loved one free. These choices are akin to the same choices many people have to make in the criminal justice system, often faced with discrimination and hardships on the basis of gender, socio-economic status and lack of awareness. Should she compromise her children’s education to pay the legal fees? Should she relocate to protect her children? Users will have to make such decisions for her.

 

Remember, this is (not) a game. For thousands of people in Pakistan, this is real life.

 

 

 

CREDITS

Production: Justice Project Pakistan

Creative Consultants: Ryan Van Winkle, Deborah Pearson (Golden Hour Productions)

Artwork: Umair Najeeb Khan

Development Partners: Lawgic, Azaad Theatre, Mishermayl Productions, Afzal Saahir, Shahwali Shayan

Supporting partner: Vakeel Online

Marketing partner: Optiwise Solutions

 

Explore The Interactive Campaign

“This Is (Not) A Game” is a digital single-player game based on multiple fictionalised narratives, inspired by real life stories of countless prisoners and their families. In this ‘choose your own adventure’ style game, all choices are difficult choices.

Playtime: 3-5 minutes

Release date: 7 October, 2021

Playable on all devices and browsers

An interactive street theatre was performed with local communities in Lahore, Faisalabad, Multan and Karachi, in collaboration with Azad Theatre. The play was an adaptation of “This Is (Not) A Game” where audience members took turns directing the play by helping the actors take important decisions in their journey. 

    

Do you know you can play “This Is (Not) A Game” on your Instagram story as well? Head over to your Instagram account now, go to create a story and use an Augmented Reality (AR) version of our game. Share it on your profile using #ThisIsNotAGame and share it with us on our account @JusticeProjectPak.

 

 

    

The interactive theatre group from Azad Theatre joined radio host Afzal Sahir at midnight of October 7 on FM103 and played “This Is (Not) A Game”  live on air with the audience.

 

   

   

Why This Campaign?

 

Families of death row defendants, particularly women, face tough and often traumatic experiences in a system that inherently discriminates against them. This campaign illustrates the experience of the family members of indigent defendants and how systemic problems in the justice system (such as power and corruption) intersect with poverty, access to legal representation, torture in police custody etc.

 

For World Day Against the Death Penalty, observed every October 10, the World Coalition Against the Death Penalty has chosen “Women and the death penalty: An invisible reality” as this year’s theme. Although Pakistan sentences very few women to death, the justice system disproportionately affects women who have to engage with the system in one way or another, whether it is visiting a police station to file a complaint or to attend court hearings. A 2018 study by Agnes Callamard, titled “Judged For More Than Her Crime” found, “Women in conflict with the law are particularly vulnerable to abuse and other rights violations, either at the police station, during trial, or while incarcerated. Women are more likely than men to be illiterate, which affects their ability to understand and participate in their own defense.

 

A report by the Ministry of Human Rights, titled “Plight of Women in Pakistan’s Prisons”, found that women were less knowledgeable and less empowered to Pakistan’s existing criminal justice system. To date, Pakistan has not had a single female judge in the Supreme Court and there are less than 10 female judges in the country’s high courts. This gender disparity exists within lawyers as well as the police force, both traditionally male dominated professions. This makes access to justice much more difficult for women involved in the system. 

Views: 5122