US socialite and media figure Paris Hilton has testified to Congress in the United States, sharing her traumatic experience as an institutionalised teenager in an effort to strengthen child welfare protections.
On Wednesday, the 43-year-old reality television star told the House committee she had been “force-fed medications and sexually abused by staff” while she was institutionalised as a teenager at youth facilities.
“When I was 16 years old, I was ripped from my bed in the middle of the night and transported across state lines to the first of four youth residential treatment facilities,” said Hilton.
“These programs promised healing, growth and support, but instead did not allow me to speak, move freely or even look out a window for two years.
“I was force-fed medications and sexually abused by the staff.”
“I was violently restrained and dragged down hallways, stripped naked and thrown into solitary confinement.”
“My parents were completely deceived, lied to and manipulated by this for-profit industry about the inhumane treatment I was experiencing.”
Hilton is the great-granddaughter of Hilton Hotels founder Conrad Hilton, and shot to fame as a socialite and co-star of the early 2000s reality TV series The Simple Life, with her friend, Nicole Ritchie, the adopted daughter of Lionel Ritchie.
More recently, Hilton has been a singer, DJ, podcaster and entrepreneur.
An outspoken advocate for better protections for children in youth facilities, Hilton has previously touched on the emotional and physical abuse she endured in her 2020 YouTube documentary, which has been viewed over 79 million times, as well as her memoir, released last year.
Through her advocacy Hilton has called on a Utah boarding school she attended, Provo Canyon School, to be shut down. She said it was “the worst of the worst”.
Hilton has also called on lawmakers to pass the Stop Institutional Child Abuse Act, designed to strengthen oversight of residential youth programs in the $US23 billion ($34.6 billion) industry.
“I appreciate the opportunity to be here today to discuss how to improve care for the nearly 400,000 children that are living in the foster care system as we speak,” Hilton said to the House Committee on Wednesday.
“While my experience was not in the foster care system, I know, from personal experience, the harm that is caused by being placed in youth residential treatment facilities.”
“Today residential facilities are continuing to warehouse over 50,000 foster youth, and an unknown number of adopted youth, in lockdown facilities.”
“Innocent kids who’ve not committed crimes, kids whose parents didn’t have resources to support them, kids whose parents passed away, kids who’ve already experienced trauma.”
“Why can’t we as a society see that these kids are hurting?”
“They need love and kindness, not beatings and restraints,” she said, adding that “as a mom, these stories break my heart.”
“I’m here to be a voice for the children whose voices can’t be heard.”