CHRISTINA spoke about a subject she describes as close to her heart. Just before going on stage, she gently put at ease a Scots victim of domestic abuse who had come to meet her.

The singer feels so strongly about the issue that she has agreed to put her high profile name to the latest phase in the Scottish Executive's domestic abuse campaign launching today which focuses on children.

As she hugged a starstruck Maggi, 15, Aguilera told The Herald of her own experiences of violence in the home and the emotional scars it left.

She watched her father Fausto Aguilera regularly beat her mother, Shelly. She would sing loudly in her room to drown out her mother's screams.

After a particularly violent episode which left Aguilera with a bleeding, split lip, her mother left Fausto and took her and younger sister Rachel.

As she spoke about the past the 25-year-old singer was having the finishing touches done to her dramatic golden stage make-up. Away from the stage she is tiny – five feet two – and so slender she looks fragile. Her black hair was scraped into a high ponytail and she was wearing her trademark leather chaps. Her pale blue eyes, heavy with false black lashes, remained cast down as she spoke.

"Being a victim of abuse makes you vulnerable to being hurt and can make a person build a wall around themselves to protect them from it happening again," she said carefully. "For me it was even hard to fall in love for the first time because the experiences you have of seeing a relationship is obviously a relationship. What really helped me was finding music as a source of escape.

"I'm proud to support the Scottish initiative which focuses on the effect that this has on children. My own experience has shown that you can survive after going through terrible times at home."

The first series of adverts – produced in consultation with Scottish Women's Aid – focused on the victims but this latest phase, called Dolls' house, is about the children. Research has shown that, in about 90% of all domestic abuse incidents in Scotland, children are in the same room or next door. There are common traits in the children who witness violence being inflicted on a parent, the most common being depression, loneliness, fear and low-self esteem.

Aguilera says she has found an outlet for her emotional demons in her music and the song I'm OK from her latest album, Stripped, contains the words: "Every time my father's fists would put her in her place." In her recent hit song Beautiful, she talks of the pain caused by verbal abuse: "I am beautiful no matter what they say/ words won't bring me down."

Seldom smiling as she recalled her childhood she described her songwriting and singing as a source of "escape."

It was a refuge for me from the environment I was in at a time I found my voice and I could release myself of any pain I was going through. Music was amazing for that. Everyone has their own form of escape and any child going through the same experience should find a way out within them. Mine happened to be music and performing."

Fame began for the young Christina when, aged 12, she was picked to appear in the new Mickey Mouse Club. Musical success followed. However the singer admits the emotional scars of her past are still with her and she has attracted criticism for her overtly sexual image.

The video for her song Dirrty provoked outrage and she has been ridiculed in the press for her outrageous hair, makeup and and body piercings.

Defiant, Aguilera says her individual look is her way of expressing herself and regaining the freedom in her life she felt was denied to her as a child.

Today she supports the National Coalition of Violence Against Women in America and encourages all victims of abuse to speak out.

Asked whether she is still working through her former traumas, she nods without hesitation. "I still have issues with the past. Even making this album and writing songs like I'm OK and Make Over help me. I'll always have memories but it's therapeutic for me to talk about it and get it out to other people.

"It helps me cope with my pain and it gets the message out to others, like my Scottish fans, some of whom may not have the confidence to dig up their own emotions. It's such a hush hush situation that only involves family members most of the time so that the victims don't feel they can get help. It's so important you do even after it's happened because often when the physical pain has faded the emotional pain stays."

Having such a high profile person back the Scottish Executive to bring domestic violence out of the shadows is a sign of its success.

Mary Mulligan, deputy communities minister, said: "One of the most poignant things is that children often feel responsible for the abuse that's been inflicted on their mother. We've tried to address this by providing funding for children's workers who can now offer specialist support and counselling in every area of Scotland. I'm delighted that Christina has given her support. The fact that Christina herself experienced domestic abuse when she was a child and is willing to speak out about it now will give strength and hope to the many Scottish children who are currently living with this constant threat."

As Aguilera smiled for the cameras and became the sassy diva once more in place she had a last message for her fans.

"Make negatives into a positive. Be strong. My mom and I were a team and were strong for each other. I have all the respect in the world for a woman who has the strength to take her children and walk away from a situation like that. All I can say is find help. You're not alone."

About Abuse and Father

That"s why I think music was so important for me, I would go upstairs and I would line up all my stuffed animals and pretend they were my audience and sing to them. Close my door and escape it."

"Everything"s really real, The marks along her neck. My mom had glove marks all over her neck from a fight. She was being strangled with an army jacket"

"I think I crossed the street when I wasn't supposed to or something. My dad took me and threw me against the stairs, up the stairs."

My parent's "Divorce and hard times at school, all those things combined to mold me, to make me grow up quicker. And it gave me the drive to pursue my dreams that I wouldn't necessarily have had otherwise."

"Well, I guess one just popped in my head. The holidays are coming up, and I love that time. When I was 7 years old, I was at my grandmother"s and I walked downstairs and there was a Barbie Kitchen waiting for me, and I always wanted one, so I was so excited about that. So that"s a good childhood memory for me."

"As you may know, I just graduated high school, so I"m proud of that. That"s one of my accomplishments this year. Right now I"m playing it by ear. I"m going to ride this amazing trip that I"m taking in my career that seems to be blowing up... all the way. And college is something I want to do but probably not major in music, but maybe psychology or something that I was interested in.