Trina Flowers, an American teacher, victim of the corrupt Kuwaiti system

By Ben Rivard
Human rights defender

Trina Flowers, a female American teacher, used to teach English at the Kuwait University at the faculty of medicine. After completing her one year contract, she was offered a position at A’takamul Int’l School whose C.E.O. is Dr. Ibrahim Al Khulaifi who used to work for the martyr’s bureau at the Amiri Diwan.

In March 2002, Miss Flowers claimed that she was fired from the school under false pretexts because she refused to pass students who had failed. She filed a complaint at the Ministry of Social Affairs and Labor where she was not allowed to testify and present documents supporting her claim. On the other hand, the lawyer representing the school was allowed to proceed unopposed. The M of SA&L, most probably because of Al Khulaifi’s wasta, decided not to get involved in the case even though it was the Ministry’s jurisdiction and responsibility to enforce the contract between the parties. Miss Flowers was told to file her case in Labor Court if she wished to pursue the matter.

On April 23rd 2002, Miss Flowers filed case 550/2002, Labour First Instance /8 against her employer requesting financial compensation for the remaining period of her contract. On January 12th 2003, the Labour Court ruled in favor of Miss Flowers stating that the reasons for firing Miss Flowers were unsubstantiated and, because of a mistake made by the experts department in the report 1082 / F1 / 2002, the school was ordered to pay only half of her labor dues. In retaliation, on February 9th 2003, an absconding case was filed by the employer at the Rumaithiya police station against Miss Flowers. The employer made a false declaration stating she was absconding when in fact, there was a case in court because he had fired her almost a year before. As a result, an arrest warrant was issued against her. On the very same day, the school appealed the ruling in case 141 / 2003 – Labor / 2. On October 12th 2003, the Appeal Court upheld the previous ruling in favor of Miss Flowers.

At this point, Miss Flowers had been unemployed for 19 months and had not received a single fils to support herself. During the legal proceedings, Miss Flowers had asked the M of SA&L to authorize the transfer of her residency under another sponsor to be allowed to work to support her basic needs. Also, her residency which was set to expire on December 25th 2002 was automatically extended until the end of the case. The Ministry refused her request even though she was authorized to do so under the labor law. As a result, she could no longer pay for her flat and other basic needs. She had promised the owner to pay the rent as soon as the court would release her money but in vain. A Good Samaritan had given her some money to pay for her flat but the new owner who was renting the other flats for twice as much didn’t miss this opportunity. He refused to take her money and had her thrown out of her flat in March 2004. She then used the money given to her to rent the cheapest flat she could find and support herself until she could legalize her status and be allowed to work or leave Kuwait of her own free will.

Meanwhile, she had been to the Hawally court more than a hundred times to collect the money awarded to her in the labor case but, due to corruption, she was always told to come back the following week. As a result, those she owed money to wouldn’t wait any longer and had filed cases and travel bans against her. Playing the stupid game, the court clerks were asking her to pay these people before releasing her money which was meant to pay her depts. As a result, she was not able to get her due until October 4th 2004 on which day; the Consul of the American embassy accompanied her to the court and wasn’t going to leave the building until she gets her money.

At this point, she had been unemployed for 31 months; she had false absconding charges filed against her; an arrest warrant was still in effect because of the false statement provided by the employer; she had travel bans against her; her residency had expired so any services requiring a valid residency were denied since December 25th 2002 and; she was not allowed to work either.

Even though she had legal rights, she was treated as an illegal but couldn’t leave Kuwait due to travel bans.

The complicity between her ex-employer, the M of SA&L and the Ministry of Interior made her life in Kuwait literally impossible. Many times she went to the MOI about the false absconding charges and when she produced the court documents proving she was illegally fired and wasn’t absconding, some police officers ignored the evidences and detained her on three different occasions. She tried to file criminal charges against her ex-employer for filing false charges in order to mislead the authorities but every time, the public prosecution and the police stations refused to take the complaint without giving any reasons.

While fighting for her legal and human rights, other expatriate workers and Kuwaitis asked her for help with their own legal issues which she always did for free even though she needed the money. She visited every ministries, government bodies and human rights groups for help. Very few people actually tried to help and every time they looked into her case and realized how much corruption was involved, they became too scared to do anything. As a result, because she was continuously denied her rights, she became more frustrated and desperate but determined to fight for her rights no matter what.

As she became more vocal and started to publish on the internet about her case and others, once again, wasta and corruption came into play. She was arrested on September 29th 2005, detained then deported on October 17th 2005 after being victimized by a corrupt system for 3 years and 7 months while she never got legal remedy for the abuse she was victim of. She had committed no crime and all she was asking for was her legal rights to be respected. Instead, the rules of corruption were enforced and the victim was punished.

I witnessed all of it and saw all supporting documents.