By Barbara Grady

A missing 17-year-old girl for whom relatives and neighbors have been searching for - for about a month - and feared was kidnapped has been heard from by telephone, said her godmother Mona Webb.

"She is alive, she is safe," Webb said after hearing from her goddaughter Jacques Danielle Hollins who goes by the name "Danny."

The teenager has not returned home or been located, Webb said, but "she called to say she is OK and that I should call off the search."

The search for Danny has been the subject of Facebook posts, neighborhood flyers, telephone calls, alerts by Oakland police and searches along International Boulevard since late September when she ran away.

Although Danny had run away before and was involved in street life, the search took on new urgency after Sept. 23 when three individuals told Webb they saw a girl who looked like Danny get into or perhaps be forced into a car in a parking lot at International Blvd and 24th Street. Webb said she feared she had been kidnapped by a pimp.

The Oakland Police Department did not comment on the case.

"Community outreach allowed us to get through, to get a phone call that she is alive. I’m going to continue to work with the Oakland police on this and the Michigan police to look for her, but at least we know she is alive and OK," Webb said.

She fears Danny is trying to get back to Michigan where she had been controlled by a pimp who made her work the streets. The telephone call was placed from a number with a 313 area code, one of Michigan's area codes. Danny's grandmother had sent the girl to California to get her away from the pimp. But she missed him.

"She has been brainwashed," Web said. "I feel like what she is reaching out for is the love of a father."

Danny is one of scores of teenagers in Oakland and hundreds of thousands across the U.S. who are caught up in the sex trade, controlled by pimps who exploit their vulnerability and offer them protection, food or shelter in exchange for making them sell sex on the streets for hundreds of dollars a night.

"I'm relieved to know she is alive, relieved to know she is well and I hope it gets better," Webb said. "But I also know she is still making choices that are not informed decisions. She is still being brainwashed."