Cases of abuse are growing fastest among teenagers, police have said, with nearly a fifth of girls aged 16-19 estimated to have experienced domestic abuse.

Louisa Rolfe, the National Police Chiefs’ Council lead for domestic abuse, said “nowhere near enough” was being done to tackle misogyny among young boys and toxic online influences.

Last year, the Office for National Statistics found that young people aged 16 to 19 and 20 to 24 represented a larger share of those experiencing domestic abuse than any other age group.

At a House of Lords committee on the 2021 Domestic Abuse Act, Rolfe said the current definition of abuse under the act “does not currently capture the under-16s” experiencing abuse in their relationships, despite being the “fastest-growing group of victims of domestic abuse”.

She added that the latest police data regarding 16- to 19-year-olds shows that 18% are estimated to be victims of domestic abuse.

“That’s a huge proportion of young people,” said Rolfe. “And we work very hard in this space to look at where we apply justice outcomes, but we don’t want to criminalise a whole cohort of young people. We absolutely must identify the most harmful behaviour, but also our preference would be to prevent it.

“This kind of offending needs a whole society response in terms of increasing understanding [of] the dynamics of abuse, particularly. There are some brilliant schemes around tackling misogyny with young boys in school and talking about toxic influence online, but nowhere near enough. By the time it gets to us, often the harm is gone, the trauma’s been suffered, and we’d much rather work with others on preventing this.”

Rolfe added police colleagues are working with academics on the issue of abuse in teenage relationships, to ensure “we don’t unpick the brilliant developments over the years of how policing responds to child abuse investigations and dealing with vulnerable children, but that we ensure those investigators are also aware of the dynamics of abusive relationships”.

Helen Millichap, the national policing lead for violence against women and girls, added that the current definition struggles to account for the “digital age” and cases of abuse within online relationships.

Millichap said: “Sometimes, intimate partner relationships that you might feel should be in scope of the spirit of this Act are now handled online, or sometimes are online into the real world.”

“It may be arguable whether an online relationship meets the definition of the act but the response should be meaningful and effective in relation to what’s required in terms of providing the service to the victim and justice.”

According to Refuge, there has been a rise in domestic abuse among young women and girls aged 16 to 25. Of the 842 victims who received support from the service last year, 73% were affected by psychological abuse, and six in 10 said they had experienced coercive control.

Later in the evidence session, Harriet Wistrich, CEO of the Centre for Women’s Justice, said the Home Office’s current approach to immigration risks making it more difficult for women who are migrants or refugees to access support for abuse.

Currently, the Domestic Abuse Act 2021 does not include victims with insecure immigration status. Wistrich said: “Abusers know how to manipulate that and how to keep them stuck in their relationship.”

She said the lack of trust and perceived “firewall between policing and immigration” creates fears that reporting abuse will lead to their immigration status being questioned instead.

“I’m afraid the very recent announcements about the earned settlement scheme and the changes to asylum laws are going to make that far, far worse and really put the lives of those who don’t have established immigration status at huge risk,” Wistrich added.