Keren Dunaway Gonzalez, an 18-year-old AIDS activist in Honduras who was kidnapped January 6 in the city of San Pedro Sula, has been freed, BBC News reports.

Dunaway and her mother, Rosa Gonzalez, run a nonprofit nongovernmental organization called Llaves that helps people living with HIV. Dunaway made headlines in 2008 at the International AIDS Conference in Mexico City when she gave a passionate speech about her everyday experiences with the virus. Today she also runs a magazine for HIV-positive children.

She and her mother were abducted outside the organization, but the mother was released a few blocks away. Her mother went on TV to assure the kidnappers that the family and organization had no money.

Eight hours after the kidnapping, Dunaway was abandoned in a car. She is undergoing tests to be sure her health is good.

Kidnappings like this, the BBC reports, are said to be common in Honduras, which is one of the most violent countries in the world. It is also home to about 60 percent of Central America’s AIDS cases.