From the outside, it looks like an ordinary house, but there are some clues to what it really is.

There's no name on the front door for a start, no sign of who lives here. And around the top of the walls is an almost invisible strip of electrified wire. It is to keep the women who live here safe.

The house, in the north-western Brazilian city of Ariquemes, is called Casa de Noeli and it is a safe place for women who have been victims of violence and need to be kept away from their attackers. It is the only house of its kind in this entire region of 150,000 people even though violence against women in Brazil is common. Over the last decade, 43,000 women have been murdered in the country and by some estimates, as many as one in three women have experienced some kind of violence.

There are organisations that are trying to help, including Christian Aid, which will be raising money in Glasgow for its work in Brazil this week. But it is not easy, as 25-year-old Frances, who has lived at the safe house, explains. She says violence in her country is very common and many of her friends have experienced it; she also says the police cannot be trusted.

Frances first came to the safe house in May last year to escape years of abuse at the hands of her husband Joao. "I was living with my husband for 12 years," she says, "and all those years I was abused, I was beaten." When she first started living with Joao, she was 13 and he was 20, which is relatively common in this part of Brazil.

Frances, who has two sons Jaio, 7 and Joao, 6, tried to leave several times, but felt frightened into going back to her husband. "I was threatened by him," she says. "He killed my father and brother, and he threatened to kill me if I left. And he is a very dangerous man, he always carried a gun. I reported him to the police station numerous times, but nothing happened. The police force did nothing."

She eventually decided to leave after being beaten by Joao when she returned one night from her job in a supermarket. "I decided to leave then and there," she says. "I went back to the supermarket and I quit my job. Then I went to the police station, I reported it and I was welcomed into the safe house."

She stayed at Casa de Noeli for three months before moving to live with her sister, but her troubles were not over yet. "I had a restraining order, but he didn't respect it and still tried to get to where I was," she says. "But he couldn't get to me and he got upset, so he killed a man." He is now in prison and is awaiting trial for murder - but not for beating Frances. She feels let down by the legal system.

"In my case the law did nothing," she says. "I didn't feel protected by the law." She says she is now trying to organise her life to find a new job and a new place to live.

The head of the safe house, 29-year-old Rev Elineide Oliveira, is helping Frances with that process, but it is an uphill battle. Rev Oliveira agrees with Frances that the police are not very helpful and points out that the safe house is the only one for miles around.

Some financial support has come from Christian Aid and Kath Galloway, who is the head of Christian Aid Scotland and is based in Glasgow, has been out to visit the safe house. A network of churches across Glasgow will also be raising money in the city during Christian Aid Week, which runs until May 16th.

Galloway, who visited the house in 2014, says more safe houses like Casa de Noeli are needed in Brazil but that the problem goes much deeper than that. "It is not enough to just have legislation," she says. "we have to change the culture - the macho culture. It's like Scotland was 30 years ago."

Rev Oliveira says she is committed to making that happen because she has seen domestic violence in her own family. She also wants to continue to help women such as Frances and Erineude, a 24-year-old woman who lived in the safe house to escape her abusive father.

Erineude, who has three daughters aged six, four and six months, says she felt very bad when she first came to the house, but by the time she had left she had a big smile on her face. "The reception I received when I came here made me realise I had support," she says.

And her message for other women suffering domestic abuse is simple and strong: "Do not suffer, denounce."

panel

Christian Aid works with some of the poorest people in almost 50 countries, through local partner organisations, to end poverty.

This Christian Aid Week (10-16 May) thousands of volunteers across the UK will take part in Britain's longest running door-to-door fundraising week to raise money for its vital work with communities like those in Brazil featured here.

You can help to change the lives of women in places like Brazil this Christian Aid Week by donating online at www.caweek.org, calling 08080 006 006, or texting 'WEEK' to 70040 to give £5.