Slaying Victim Amy Biehl’s Work Continued by Mother

Amy Biehl’s mother continued the slain American student’s mission in South Africa on Wednesday, promising to raise more money to help battered women.

Linda Biehl visited a women’s center in Guguletu, the black township where Amy Biehl, who was white, was attacked by a gang of black youths shouting anti-white slogans.

Three young black men are being tried in Amy Biehl’s death. After a hearing Monday, the trial was recessed until Aug. 31.

The Newport Beach native was killed last Aug. 25, days before she was to have returned to the United States after spending 10 months as a Fulbright scholar researching the rights of women and children here.

“I do understand more now why Amy was totally involved,” Linda Biehl said after talking with Mandisa Monokali, director of the center. “I think she really wanted to make sure that the women came through in the process.”

Biehl’s family already has helped raise $4,000 that the Free South Africa Foundation recently donated to Monokali’s center.

Linda Biehl promised she would try to raise more money in honor of her daughter’s memory.

Monokali spoke of the lack of facilities for abused women and children in South Africa and the difficulties encountered by women seeking equality.

She said she started the center, called Ilitha Labantu, or the People’s Sunbeam in Xhosa, after realizing that “the same men who stand on platforms and who talk about liberation are the men who abuse us.”

President Nelson Mandela, South Africa’s first black president, has only five women in his 30-member Cabinet, though he has promised gender equality. Some progress has been made but Monokali believes it will take years to change attitudes.