Do you know.....?

Do you know that the age at which girls can lawfully have sex is 16, but there are extra rules applying to the under-13s.

The law presumes that when a girl is under 13 she is not mature enough to consent to sex. So even if a 12-year-old girl willingly has intercourse, as far as the law is concerned, she has not "consented" to it because legally she is not able to.

The implication of the rule is that anyone who has sex with a girl under 1is committing what is termed "statutory rape". There is no defence to this charge - even if a boy says the girl was willing or that he thought she was older than she was, it would not matter. It is the same as when two 15 years-old who were having sex.

You can see there are consequences for underage sex, think before you do it. Sex is not a funny thing to try. It's the same as underage pregnancy.

Sources: BBC News 1999