Child abuse and neglect can be thought of as violations of children's rights. Declarations of children's rights have been formulated by adults; they are intended to be internationally valid, but little attempt has been made to find out what children themselves think about their rights, in any country.

This study compared the views of Malaysian children and young adults with those of Australians. In both countries the right to love, affection and understanding ranked highly. Few children ranked highly their rights to freedom from fear of harm, or to protection; young adults ranked them more highly than the children. Most young people perceived schools as holding views very different from their own on children's rights. If schools are to perform a useful function in preventing abuse and neglect, children's views of schools may need to change, perhaps through changes in the schools.