It's not an especially small corner of our world, but it's a dark one, and that is how the suffering grows. In darkness.

Today The Advertiser launches a provocative series on the pain of domestic violence. The stories and photos, by writers Rob Perez and Kevin Dayton and photographer Jeff Widener, draw with broad strokes the basic outlines of the problem — the difficulty of prosecution, the shortage of shelter space, the cultural barriers to seeking help — and fill in the picture with heart-rending stories of personal struggles.

Over the course of seven days, the chronicles shed some desperately needed light on issues that affect many in Hawai'i — many more than most people realize — but that too often escape public notice.

That is, they're unnoticed until the day that the unthinkable happens.

Nov. 1, 2006, was such a day. Daysha Iwalani Aiona-Aka, 21, was killed by her ex-boyfriend, the father of her child. The culmination of a cycle of domestic violence in a violent death means that previously hidden troubles spill into newspaper headlines.

But unknown even then, and a far more evocative story than the one the media told about the tragedy, is the tale Daysha wove herself, in the pages of her diary. Reporter Dayton captured much of the anxiety and worry from those pages and brought it to light.

"Only God knows what goes on," she wrote. "Only God knows. But really DOES only God know?"

Now many more people can know what this one domestic violence victim endured. Dayton points out the bitter irony that this young woman sometimes exhibited anger and guilt in her writing but usually wrote with hope, "in the voice of a strong, optimistic woman who wanted everything to turn out right."

If other victims can recognize themselves in her words, and if that recognition can lead them to chart a course to safety, then Daysha's hope can be realized, at least for another person.

The Advertiser is displaying this series so prominently because too often these woes sink beneath society's viewplane, and that lack of visibility is what allows this problem to fester.

Nanci Kreidman, ehief executive officer of the Domestic Violence Action Center in Honolulu, observes that this scourge is enabled by the indifference of society.

The hope is that readers will find it difficult to remain indifferent once they confront the reality. Then they can turn that awareness into vigilance — looking for signs of trouble among people in their own circles and helping them find a lifeline in law enforcement and social service agencies.

But first Hawai'i must confront this crisis. The victims need to be brought out of the shadows. Reading this week's series is one way to take a step in that direction.