Peppimenarti resident Annunciata Nunuk Wilson has helped many women who have been injured by their partners, because her remote Northern Territory community does not have a safe house and the nearest police are an hour's drive away in Wadeye.
Ms Wilson recently took a woman who had been stabbed off the street and into her home.
"She had a cut between her ribs and her hip," she said.
"She was kneeling over in pain. I helped her to the clinic but after that she ended up back with him, it's becoming like a normal thing.
"There's a lot of grog now coming into the community, more drugs — marijuana and ice — the violence is getting worse."
Annunciata Nunuk Wilson says local children re-enact DV incidents they have witnessed. (ABC News: Jane Bardon)
Ms Wilson is one of a group of women who have drawn up a report documenting the domestic violence crisis in their remote communities of Peppimenarti and Wadeye, four hours south of Darwin, and proposing their own solutions.
Three weeks ago, they presented the Mapping Women and Children's Safety report to the NT and federal governments along with an appeal to fund the things they have listed that they think would help reduce rates of domestic and family violence.
They have not yet received any government responses.
Safe houses a priority
For the report, the women interviewed dozens of community members and stakeholders, including local police.
The group is made up of women from Wadeye and Peppimenarti. (Supplied: Tracey Leo)
For Ms Wilson, a safe house is Peppimenarti's most urgent priority.
"If we had a safe house we could give women advice, like how to flee from violence, educating young girls when they're in that relationship," she said.
Report contributor Bridget Bunduck said the four-bed safe house in Wadeye was insufficient for her community of 2,500, and its capacity needed to be doubled or tripled.
Bridget Bunduck says Wadeye's safe house is often full. (Supplied: Alana Holmberg)
Ms Bunduck said she had been unable to stay there when it was full after she suffered domestic violence herself, and while working there has had to turn away other women.
"When people come there to the safe house, when it's full the manager tells us to ring the police — I'm worried for all the women and children," she said.
The women say NT Police often aren't able to attend local DV attacks. (ABC News: Jane Bardon)
The women behind the report found that "most children" in their communities "are exposed to domestic violence", and "very young children are re-enacting the violence".
"It's going in cycles where the kids are witnessing violence," Ms Wilson said.
The women also reported young girls, aged between 13 and 15, "are becoming pregnant to much older men", with whom they are in "horrible relationships, where they're just getting physically assaulted".
"There is not enough support to get out of that situation when there's violence," Wadeye report contributor Christine Tchemjiri said.
Christine Tchemjiri says Wadeye needs a counselling service. (Supplied: Alana Holmberg)
"When we need help to talk to somebody there's nobody to talk to; I myself have struggled to see counselling."
Fellow Wadeye resident, Alice Kungiung, also worked on the report and said regular fighting between the community's Indigenous clans due to an old feud had made it even harder for DV victims to get help from police.
"By the time police get there, somebody has already got hurt,"
she said.
Ms Kungiung said her community needed a men's behaviour change program along with "safe accommodation, a sobering up shelter and more police and security".
Alice Kungiung wants to see a men's program to help educate and improve behaviour. (Supplied: Alana Holmberg)
Community-driven solutions
Wadeye's local Indigenous Thamarrurr Development Corporation and Australian National University gender violence researcher Chay Brown assisted the women in writing their report.
Dr Brown said the gaps and solutions identified were common to many remote communities.
"The solutions need to be really driven by the community, which I think is the value of this report, that it is really being driven by the women themselves," she said.
Dr Chay Brown wants the NT government to offer more funds for DV prevention. (ABC News: Jane Bardon)
Dr Brown said she wanted to see the Country Liberal Party government devote some of the extra $36 million a year it promised for domestic violence services to fund the women's priority solutions.
"Across the Northern Territory, domestic and family violence is in a crisis, it has not received the funding and the attention commensurate with the level of need,"
she said.
"It's really incumbent on the Northern Territory government to reassess their work and try to genuinely build some partnerships, and that's not something we have seen since they took office."
NT Minister for the Prevention of Domestic Violence Robyn Cahill was not available for interview.
Wadeye has been battling an ongoing crime wave. (ABC News: Jane Bardon)
Federal Social Services Minister Tanya Plibersek provided a statement saying her government was already helping fund services in Wadeye, including the safe house.
She said the federal Labor government was "investing $120 million into NT services" to tackle domestic violence.
"We are disappointed that the NT government have cut funding for domestic, family and sexual violence services by 11 per cent, at a time where all levels of government should be investing in protecting women and children," she said in the statement.