A rose in the neighbour's garden doesn't smell as sweet

And since we are on the subject of women, and it being a subject that I find hard to get off:
Apparently, there's an ancient Indian saying that investing in a girl is like watering the neighbour's garden.

I found part of a report on the Asia and Pacific Forum on Poverty (the page was refusing to open up as a link, last time I checked, therfore am just quoting some statistics from it).

Some 61% girls are kept out of school (Don't let them study... remember, the neighbour's garden?). Also, although they're genetically tougher, 18% more Indian girls die before the age of 5. (Don't feed them... it will be such fun watching the neighbour's garden wilt up and die)
300 women die each day, in childbirth or through pregnancy-related causes. That's one woman every five minutes. (But why should we care? It's the neighbour's garden.)

But the most startling statistic of all -
31.5% women are tortured at some point.
23.6% are molested.
11.6% are raped.

Even if we allow for unreported rapes, I think these are very curious figures.... Does this mean, then, that there are many more women being tortured, just for the heck of it? Not necessarily raped, not even molested... but just tortured.... why? 31.5%? One-third, nearly?

I'm trying to apply the 'neighbour's garden' logic here, but my imagination fails me.