More 12 and 13-yr-olds being impregnated and Jamaican women's advocates want tougher laws

-- Faced with an increase in the number of pregnancies among pre-teen and early teenage girls, women's advocates are agitating for stronger laws to rein in carnal abusers.

The Women's Centre of Jamaica Foundation, with offices islandwide, reports seeing an average of 55 pregnant young girls per year, ages 12-13, over the last four years. In fact, one 11-year-old pregnant girl was seen by the agency during the period.

In general, the incidence of pregnancy among girls under the age of 15 is decreasing, moving from 709 babies born in 1999 to 278 births in 2004, according to the state-run Statistical Institute of Jamaica. But it is the rise in pregnancy among pre-teen and early teenage girls that has alarmed caregivers such as Beryl Weir, the executive director of the Women's Centre Foundation of Jamaica. --