Campaigners are asking for the law to be changed to help rescue thousands of Aboriginal children in Australia from extreme neglect.
Alcohol abuse is rife amongst indigenous communities and children are being abandoned while their parents drink.
In some rural areas it is common to see toddlers in nappies wandering around unsupervised, even begging for food or warm clothing.
Many non-indigenous families are so concerned that they have been taking children off the streets and into their homes without formal permission.
They want the law changed to make it easier for white Australians to foster or adopt Aboriginal children.
Eight-year-old Cebby, who was born to an alcoholic mother, has been surrounded by alcohol abuse and violence throughout his young life.
He told Sky News about the few simple things he thinks adults should provide.
"I want them to make me feel safe. Make me feel alright, not scared. Make me feel normal."
Becky Healy, who runs a motel in Tennant Creek - a town in the heart of Australia's outback, is distraught at the huge numbers of Aboriginal children wandering the streets unwashed, unfed and unschooled.
Her motel has inadvertently become a refuge for neglected children.
"It's a crisis. We are now at a point of do or die and we have to do something for these kids.
"If it means taking them into our complex and feeding them and training them when we have nothing to do with the social sector, then so be it."
Children surrounded by substance abuse are even becoming addicted themselves.
Recently three girls, barely in their teens, were caught on CCTV in Tennant Creek breaking into a workshop and sniffing petrol fumes from a tractor engine.
Politicians are now considering putting neglected Aboriginal children up for adoption, until now there has been an unwillingness to act because of fears of a new "stolen generation".
That was a misguided policy which only ended in the early 1970s where Aboriginal children were taken from their families and placed under foster care with white families or institutions.
The law has since stated that Aboriginal children in need must always be placed within their community, wherever possible.
Critics though, whilst acknowledging something needs to be done, are concerned about removing children.
Northern Territory Stolen Generations Aboriginal Corporation spokeswomen Vicki Lee Knowles recently told the ABC: "Within an Aboriginal family ... the loss of culture, land and language has a long-term impact on the social and emotional wellbeing of those children who are removed."
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