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V a woman. nine months pregnant. is cou nseled by social work ers to keep her child if it a girl. she has one seven year-old da ughter and is suspected of killing four others. lingapanaikanoor. tami! nadu. in dia for its temples and pi lgrims, the government tried to combat infa nticide by setting up a "cradle baby scheme." Cradles were set up in vi lIages where mothers (ould leave their baby girls to be taken to orpha nages for adoption. The tactic failed. "Many women see abandoning a baby as a shameful act, " says a Claretian priest who runs one of the homes. "They say it is better to send their girls to God than to the orphanage." Social workers from the Indian Council for Child Welfare try to keep track of pregnancies and births in smaller vil lages. They often assign a counselor to a woman likely to p'ractice infantic ide. On occasion, the counselor can successfully convince a woman to keep her daughter, or, at the very least, give her up for adoption. More often than not, though, counselors reach homes where the baby has already died of "natural causes." Some women's groups are studies programs and development centers are springing up around the country on col lege campuses and independently; the Prime Minister's office now identifies 27 programs exclusively for women; and women and violence awareness courses are becoming more widespread. Still , according to a USAI D/i ndia report, between 1981 and 1991 more than four million newborn girls joined the ranks of "missing women" due to infanticide or sex-selective abortion. Since the turn of the century, the ratio of females to males has conSistently decl ined. It dropped from 52 percent to 47 percent between 1980 and 1990 alone. In a world populated by more women than men, India's projected population ratio for the year 2000 is 500 million males to 480 million females. In Madurai, an ancient city near the southern coast that's famous battling female infa nti cide by ru nning programs that foster confidence, se lf-esteem and self respect by teaching women the ski lls needed to expand job opportunities. In addition, they extend loans for sma ll business ventures, educate women on their rights and offer free lega l services. They bel ieve that when women realize their own value and worth and take charge of their own lives, infanticide will stop. Alice Garg founded Bal Rashmi, an orphanage in Ja ipur that began in 1972 with four chi Idren and has grown to house, feed and school 183 children. "My life isn't my own anymore, " says Garg, who has two adopted chi ldren of her own. "I belong to the people." Her attitude is sha red by the hundreds of women who are doing their part to create a world where women and chi ldren can take control of their lives, a world where it is safe to be born a girl. Additional reporting by Zana Briski.