Cops & Rubbers: A Game Promoting Advocacy and Empathy in Support of Public Health and Human Rights of Sex Workers

The paper presents Cops and Rubbers, a tabletop serious game developed by Lien Tran and released at the 2012 International AIDS Conference in Washington, D.C., as an advocacy tool against the practice of police confiscating condoms and using them as evidence of prostitution. Players take on the roles of sex workers aiming to earn money while avoiding HIV and other sexually transmitted infections, with gameplay shaped by corrupt police encounters and bribery decisions. The game was designed to accompany the Open Society Foundations' Criminalizing Condoms report, which drew on a survey of 139 sex workers and 40 outreach workers across Russia, Kenya, Namibia, South Africa, Zimbabwe, and the United States, along with a parallel Human Rights Watch study of four American cities.

The central finding is that the game attracted more public engagement with the condoms-as-evidence issue than the written report did at the conference. Over four days, more than 100 participants from 15 countries played the game, including delegates, sex workers, and at least one member of Australia's parliament, who sought to share the materials with officials in other countries. Roughly five percent of players identified as current or former sex workers, and many advocates reported using the game in their own organizations. Observers and players reported strong emotional reactions, and the author credits the game's visual design, accessibility, and procedural rhetoric, a concept drawn from Ian Bogost, for prompting players to reach conclusions about the policy independently.

The paper's scope is limited to a single conference deployment, and its evidence is largely anecdotal and observational rather than systematic. No pre- and post-play measurement of player attitudes was conducted, and the author acknowledges the absence of data on participants' prior knowledge. The work nonetheless concludes that the game and report function together as complementary advocacy instruments, with the game particularly effective in reaching diverse, non-specialist audiences and policymakers open to interactive resources.