American teacher's plight in Kuwait

[dkraft]

Hi,
The following letter came over an International School Review website a few hours ago. I don't know if anyone can help this poor lady but I thought I'd float this out there as both a warning and in case someone has some contacts who can assist her. DK

FROM: Katherine Phillips, Al-Bayan Bilingual School Middle School Deputy Principal, Kuwait
US PASSPORT NUMBER: xxxxx9279 - (contact ISR if needed)
TO: Whom It May Concern
DATE: June 21, 2007
RE: Detained in Kuwait/In Fear for My Safety
I am a Middle School Vice-Principal at Al-Bayan Bilingual School in Kuwait. I have been employed in Kuwait for 6 years at the same school. One of my primary responsibilities is student discipline. On March 8, 2006, three boys in grade 5 were suspended for fighting. I interviewed the boys, met with my principal and followed normal procedure. There is no stigma here regarding suspension. Students spend the day in the office where they study, are visited by teachers, and are taken to the canteen, etc. It’s a normal consequence for fighting; all students are aware of this and the procedure is clearly defined in our Parent Handbook.
In the afternoon of March 8th, I received a phone call from one of the boys’ fathers,
Mr. Fawaz Khalid Al Marzouq, who is a powerful man in Kuwait. He called to inform me that this situation was “personal,â€

[stinJ]

Astonishing.

So. For a woman, (especially a foreign woman) in the middle east to exert a disciplinary influence over a young man is in itself culturally uncomfortable if not outright forbidden. Men discipline men, and there is a rank of personal influence, so a man of little influence would be a fool to attempt to discipline the son of a powerful man. It's like a gardener spanking a prince to punish him for running in the flowerbeds. Unthinkable.

It is not appropriate for a female canadian to discipline the son of an influential arab family, and by extension, his father.
Naturally, he demonstrates to her that he has outranks her, even if he is not physically present.

Instead of doing what she should have done in the beginning, she just proceeds to make it worse crying the blues to everybody under the sun EXCEPT the father,

All he wanted was her apology. And apparently it'll be a some time before it occurs to her that that is the situation.