00:00Even as an educated woman with credit on my phone, the day I left, I was so overwhelmed.
00:12I was put on hold for about three hours and bounced around from service,
00:17oh, you don't fit our service, we'll transfer you over here, and I got nowhere.
00:22Darlene, which is not a real name, struggled to access support services
00:27when she left an abusive relationship with her young children.
00:32For the first year after I left, it was a nightmare, absolute nightmare.
00:40Like, the kids and I were homeless for a few months.
00:47Dawnhouse is one of the few safe havens for women and their children escaping violence in Darwin.
00:52But the service is overrun, with women at risk of harm or death not guaranteed a bed.
00:59We can turn away up to 200 women that reach out for support per month.
01:05For Darlene, emotional abuse dominated her relationship with her ex.
01:10When she left, things got worse.
01:12She got to boiling point and he threatened to kill me.
01:18When Darlene went to police, she was told there was little they could do.
01:22It will just give you some referrals to places that can support you
01:26when you can do a DVO yourself at court.
01:29This person's the victim.
01:31Why is it up to them to go to A, B, C, however many different services?
01:37We need to be coming to them.
01:40Holly Goodaroo escaped a violent relationship with her small child in 2016.
01:45She's now using her experience to educate the community about different kinds of violence.
01:50We don't have the language to say that's coercive control.
01:55So there needs to be a whole lot of education done.
01:59This men's behaviour change program in Alice Springs is one of the few running in the Territory
02:04to educate men about their use of violence.
02:07While these men are generally referred to the program through the courts, getting in isn't easy.
02:13At the moment we've got a wait list of about 90 men.
02:17So whether it's women's shelters, whether it's men's behaviour change, all of our programs are under a lot of pressure.
02:26The Northern Territory's domestic violence prevention minister, Robyn Carl,
02:31concedes frontline services are struggling to keep up with demand
02:35and says a yearly injection of $36 million starting from July is part of the solution.
02:41For women trying to escape violence, the funding can't come fast enough.
02:46They need more on-the-ground support and real-time support.
02:50We're consulting about it all the time, but we're at a stage where we need to make significant change.
02:55We can't keep talking about it.
02:57The reason why I'm so passionate about this is because I have a 12-year-old daughter.
03:02So we really don't have long to hurry up and get it right.
03:06Territory women demanding a better future for the next generation.
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