Socialite and former reality TV star Paris Hilton was in Washington D.C. Wednesday to push Congress and President Biden to create a legal bill of rights for children being held in congregate care facilities.
“Today I come here not as Paris Hilton, but as a survivor,” Hilton, 40, said at a press conference at the Capitol Wednesday morning, where she and other survivors detailed their experiences of abuse at youth treatment centers.
Hilton specifically alleged experiencing mistreatment during her time at the Provo Canyon School in Utah as a teen.
“Thinking I was being kidnapped I screamed for my parents and as I was being physically dragged out of my house I saw them crying in the hallway. They didn’t come to my rescue that night. My parents were promised the tough love would fix me, and that sending me across the country was the only way. I was sent to four facilities over a two year period and my experience at each one haunts me to this day,” she added.
“I was strangled, slapped across the face, watched in the shower by male staff, called vulgar names, forced to take medication without a diagnosis, not given a proper education, thrown into solitary confinement in a room covered and scraps marks and smeared in blood, and so much more.”
The hotel heiress and entrepreneur argued that the issue should not be partisan, calling on members on both sides of the aisle and the White House to get behind the legislation.
“Imagine if it was your child who was suffering abuse, neglect or death in the name of treatment, wouldn’t you do everything in your power to protect them interested in ensuring children are safe from institutional abuse isn’t a Republican or Democratic issue,” Hilton continued.
“It’s a basic human rights issue that requires immediate attention. On behalf of hundreds of 1000s of institutional abuse survivors across America. I urge Congress and President Biden to make this bill the law of the land and give young people in congregate care, the rights and protections they so desperately need and deserve.”
Hilton has been teaming up with Reps. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.), Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.), Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) and Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) to push for legislative action to prevent abuses at youth treatment centers.
The lawmakers on Wednesday argued that Congress needs to take action to ensure children placed in congregate-care facilities by either their parents or their state’s government aren’t subjected to endangerment or maltreatment by staff tasked with caring for their needs at the facilities.
“We cannot allow that to continue. Many children leave these facilities more traumatized than they were when they arrived, and some don’t leave at all. Between 2000 and 2015, more than 80 children died in troubled teen facilities, dying from starvation, to strangulation to suicide lives cut unimaginably short by an industry that has gone without regulation or consequence for far too long,” Schiff told reporters.
“We cannot bring these children back, nor can we erase the scars inflicted on hundreds of thousands of survivors, but we can ensure that no child ever again suffers at the hands of these facilities. And that’s precisely why we are here today. Rep. Khanna’s legislation would codify an essential Bill of Rights for children in these facilities, establishing a standard of care that cannot be violated, with impunity.”
The Accountability for Congregate Care Act is expected to be introduced in both chambers in coming days.
Aubrey Edwards-Luce from First Focus on Children, Curt Decker with National Disability Rights Network, Think of Us’ Sixto Cancel, Uvea Spezza-Lopin — a 12 year old survivor — and Caroline Cole, the Director of Government Relations with Breaking Code Silence also participated in the press conference.
Hilton’s appearance on Capitol Hill comes one day after The Washington Post published an op-ed by the star, in which she called on the federal government to take action against a system that she said is still running rampant, recalling her own story.
The former reality TV-star turned businesswoman explained that parents and the public are unaware of what goes on between staff and youths at these facilities due to them telling parents or guardians not to believe what the children say when they report mistreatment, while telling residents at the same time that no one will believe them — adding that the only solution is to have the “troubled teen industry” analyzed on a federal level.
“The last time the federal government looked seriously at problems with congregate care was the 2008 Government Accountability Office report ‘Residential Programs: Selected Cases of Death, Abuse, and Deceptive Marketing,’” Hilton wrote.
“Despite its finding that ‘ineffective management and operating practices, in addition to untrained staff, contributed to the death and abuse of youth,’ there are still no federal reporting requirements governing congregate-care facilities in non-Medicaid-funded psychiatric residential treatment facilities.”
Hilton spoke out against such facilities earlier this year when she testified about her alleged abuse at age 17 at Provo Canyon School in Utah before a state Senate Committee in February.
She also previously detailed her experience in a documentary, “This is Paris.”
