Children in deprived areas of Oxford will soon be able to pick up free morning-after pills at local pharmacies.

The pilot project is for girls under 18 and there is no minimum age for those wanting a pill, which can be taken up to 72 hours after unprotected sex to prevent pregnancy.

Campaigners claim the initiative, run by Oxford City Primary Care Trust, is flouting the law by encouraging under-age sex rather than educating youngsters about family values.

Women over 16 have been able to pay £24 for emergency contraception over the counter since 2001, but from Monday, May 3, Barton Pharmacy in Underhill Circus, Lloyds Pharmacy in Blackbird leys Road, and Superdrug in Templars Square, Cowley, will all offer it free to teenagers.

Oxfordshire teenage pregnancy co-ordinator Claire Maxwell said: "Some teenagers are very uncomfort- able about going to their GP because they're unsure about confidentiality.

"The more venues there are, the more these young people can actually make quick decisions rather than have to make a choice later on about keeping a baby or not."

Oxfordshire's teenagers can already get emergency contraception at Body Zone clinics in schools, but Ms Maxwell said the new project helped its targeting of areas with high teenage conception rates. Although 384 Oxfordshire girls aged 15 to 17 got pregnant in 2002 - lower than the national rate of 42.6 per 1,000 - rates in Blackbird Leys, Rosehill, Littlemore and Barton were among the UK's highest 20 per cent. Ms Maxwell said: "Although we have Body Zones, an audit has shown that emergency contraception from pharmacists is used by children who don't have access to other services."

But campaigner Eileen Wojciechowska of Witney, a mother of three secondary school-aged children, said giving teenagers access to emergency contraception encouraged under-age sex.

She added: "They don't really care about the children or the effects this pill has. They are helping children break the law. The first thing these pharmacists should be asking is why are you having under-age sex? "Their attitude is that if children are going to do it anyway, it's better to be safe than sorry, but that doesn't give our children the skills to say no. I think we should be focusing on abstinence."

News of the scheme comes a day after a report by Prof David Paton, of Nottingham University, claimed an increase in free contraception for teenagers had caused a rise in sexually-transmitted diseases.

Ms Maxwell said the pharmacists involved had received specialist training to help them cover a range of issues, including infection and long-term contraception. She said: "When young people are asked to list the risks from unprotected sex, pregnancy always comes top. We still have a lot of work to do around the risks of sexually transmitted diseases, which are on the increase.

"Emergency contraception does not protect against disease. That's another battle we must tackle really, and about promoting condom use."

Bharat Badiani, owner-pharmacist at Barton Pharmacy, said a lot of young people could not access existing free services.

"We're experts in medicines, we have the training and we're always keen to expand our role in the community," he said.