LIBRARIES are great places to learn something new, as I found out the other week.

I was at a coffee morning at a local library when a lady approached me and began to talk about the issue of domestic abuse. It soon became clear that I knew very little about the subject – what an admission from a former police officer.

From there, I accepted the invitation from Caroline Skerry, a volunteer and board member with the organisation Harbour that runs women’s refuges and a range of outreach services on Teesside and across the region, to see what they do.

I met Harbour’s Chief Executive, Lesley Gibson , refuge manager Lisa Nutter and some of the women they work with. I have benefited from their experience and knowledge of this issue and have visited the refuge twice. I am going back again though, as I do have a lot to learn.

I am ashamed about my lack of knowledge of domestic abuse, but I suspect I am not alone. Look at the police, the judiciary, society as a whole and you will probably find the same situation.

When most of us think about it – and again, we probably do so rarely – we see the problem in brutally simple terms: a man hitting a woman.

Now it is true that many women helped by Harbour have to live with the daily threat or reality of violence and physical harm. But blows aren’t the only thing that hurt.

There is emotional abuse, constantly running someone down, sapping their confidence, making them feel less than a person.

The workers at Harbour have heard women tell them they put 90 per cent of the work into a relationship and came out with a ten per cent share.

Being treated day-in, day-out as secondclass and less than an equal is, to my mind, one of the cruelest things imaginable. It is effectively telling someone that their views, feelings, their life even, just isn’t important.

It adds to the feeling of isolation and although it may sound incredible – the guilt – that victims feel. Because if everyone else is blaming you, it’s not long before you blame yourself.

Abuse does not respect postcodes or age. It cuts across all income groups. But it does have something in common with poverty and disadvantage in its impact on one generation after another.

People at Harbour deal with the other victims of domestic abuse: the children. The ones who try to stop their parents fighting and the ones who just sit in the corner with their toys because they have given up trying.

They do vital work with these young people and in schools. They need to understand that equality and respect are the bedrock of partnerships as much as they are of citizenship.

Women aged between 16 and 24 run the greatest risk of being involved in an abusive relationship. We can’t allow another generation to accept this as part of growing up.

I have learned a lot in the past few weeks, but as this column has probably made clear, I’m still somewhere near the back in the learner’s class.

But it seems clear to me that as more families face strains and stresses associated with the recession and organisations helping domestic abuse victims face funding pressures of their own, we need an honest and open debate on this issue. Society is a bit like most families in that it has guilty secrets that it tries to sweep under the carpet. This is one of them – and we should meet it head on.