In parts of the Northern Territory, some of the most remote areas of the country, Aboriginal women have nowhere to run.
WARNING: This story features the names and images of deceased Aboriginal people, which have been used with the permission of their families.
And alarming numbers of Aboriginal women – predominantly mothers – are being killed in domestic and family violence-related murders.
"We're hurting, we need help," said Connie Shaw, whose friend Ms R Rubuntja was murdered last year by her partner.
"We're sick of crying, sick of being in pain, sick of hurting, yeah, [we have] just had enough."
Many Aboriginal women are asking why the territory has few support services when it records one of the highest homicide rates in the world.
Due to its small population, the Northern Territory will receive just 1.8 per cent of the $260 million the federal government has dedicated to reducing domestic and family violence.
The Commonwealth will divide that quarter of a billion dollars across states and territories on a per capita basis towards a two-year national partnership agreement to reduce violence against women and girls.
Four Corners understands that in October last year, the Northern Territory sent an urgent request to other states and territories asking them to support its call for "needs-based funding".
Needs-based funding would see more money sent to the Northern Territory, where Aboriginal women are facing severe levels of violence.
South Australia, Western Australia, Queensland and NSW replied, acknowledging the need but could not commit to a needs-based funding model, said Kate Worden, the Northern Territory Minister for the Prevention of Domestic, Family and Sexual Violence.
"It was disappointing but not unexpected," she said.
She said the states "question the reliability of comparable data to use when determining state and territory needs".
"Contention over the methodology in determining need-based funding is the issue," she said.
Chay Brown, an Alice Springs-based expert on violence against women at the Australian National University (ANU), said the funding was out of step with areas in the most trouble.
"Because we have a small population, we are getting meagre funding, very small amounts of funding," she said.
"But we have the highest and most severe rates of domestic, family, sexual violence and don't have nowhere near enough money to respond to that."
Dr Brown said the federal government must urgently boost funding to safeguard Aboriginal women in the Northern Territory.
"Because so many women are dying, our hospitals are filled with women who have been assaulted, because our services are screaming out," Dr Brown said.
"It appears that it is falling on deaf ears."
'The perpetrator might come after us, and it's scary'
In the Northern Territory, many women's shelters are at capacity. There are just two men's behaviour-change programs and very little early intervention work is being done to address the crisis of violence.
In Timber Creek, six hours south of Darwin, there is no women's shelter at all.
Community leaders and sisters, Lorraine and Deb Jones, take women in danger into their homes.
"My house is always open for the women that need help," Lorraine Jones said.
Deb Jones said community members were feeling the pressure, and domestic violence in the community never stopped.
"Some people end up with anxiety and a lot of stress. If you are a community leader and they bring this client to you, you have to worry about your family. The perpetrator might come after us, and it's scary," she said.
Deb Jones is often the go-between person, taking women three hours away to Katherine's safe house for further support.
"If it is a really serious matter they send the women to Katherine, but [often] women don't want to leave their families, so they stay in the violence," she said.
"But if we had our own safe house then they are allowed to stay close to family while also getting support."
Kathryn Drummond, who works at Timber Creek's health clinic, told Four Corners the clinic was dealing with two cases of domestic violence a week.
"It is the most horrible thing to nurse someone where you know they are going back into the environment they came from," she said.
"We are also dealing with domestic violence cases that don't have acute injuries but social issues and financial issues that we are trying to help the women with, like anxieties, concerns, fear of violence happening again.
"Everyone just sees the acute side of it, but there is also the other side which is education, support, advice and we have one social worker to deal with all that."
In remote regions, Aboriginal women 'would not call' national hotline
After a 30-year-old Indigenous mother known as 'AK' was killed in Alice Springs alongside her baby earlier this year, women on the frontline pleaded for urgent investment in the Northern Territory.
The previous Coalition government committed to delivering on an additional $10.7 million, expected to go towards helplines, housing and accommodation, men's behavioural-change programs and training for frontline services.
The amount was short of what the Northern Territory government said it needed, and has not yet been distributed.
Aboriginal women are also increasingly frustrated that many of the strategies to prevent violence don't work for women in remote parts of the country.
As part of a $1.3 billion spend for women's safety announced under the previous government, $200 million was allocated for 1800RESPECT.
The telephone hotline is a crucial national response line for victims of violence, but Aboriginal women in remote areas told Four Corners that the service doesn't work for them.
"We don't even know what that is, we aren't aware of it," an Aboriginal woman working at a women's safe house in a remote community told Four Corners.
"As an Aboriginal woman, I would not call that number. It would be very hard for First Nations people across remote communities [to access].
"We have to build trust before we open up about the violence. We don't do things over the phone either; we do things in person, we need to see who we are talking to."
Lorraine Jones, who has spent decades helping other Aboriginal women, said the service wasn't provided in local language.
"Someone from the bush is not going to call someone in the city," she said.
Four Corners sought responses from other states and territories on whether they supported the NT's request for a federal needs-based funding model
The Queensland government said the state "recognised the additional challenges faced by the Northern Territory".
"The Queensland government is generally comfortable with a per capita model," said a spokesperson.
"Moving towards a needs-based funding model at this time would represent a significant shift from the current approach."
The Tasmanian government said a needs-based approach to federal funding to reduce violence against women and their children was "an important matter that warrants further discussion".
South Australia said data to support needs-based funding would "require a joined-up approach across states and territories".
Indigenous Australians Minister Linda Burney said moving to a needs-based funding model would require all levels of government to be on board.
"There has to be agreements between various levels of government [that] there is a national need, a national emergency," she told ABC News.
Meanwhile, rates of violence continue to climb in the Northern Territory.
"We need national leadership and we need it now," said Dr Brown from ANU.
Dr Brown said people "invested in ending domestic, family, sexual violence, need to take a step back and need to look at where the funding needs to go."
"It is needed here."
She argued it was "not unreasonable" to request more funding for the Northern Territory if national organisations were receiving $100 million.
"They are also often inadequate, inappropriate and ignorant of the context [in the Northern Territory]," she said.
"[Large organisations] should be expected to redistribute those funds to the Northern Territory through targeted grants and partnerships.
"It's not just about cutting up the pie differently, if we make a bigger pie, other states will get their funding needs met, whilst the Northern Territory … will see an injection of funding that is desperately needed."
