In a congressional hearing on Wednesday, Paris Hilton recounted the physical and psychological abuse she said she suffered at group care facilities as a teenager.
Ms. Hilton, who was sent to a series of youth residential treatment facilities starting at age 16, calmly testified to being violently restrained, stripped naked and thrown into solitary confinement during her stays.
“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,” she said. “I was force-fed medications and sexually abused by the staff.”
Ms. Hilton, 43, the reality TV star and great-granddaughter of the Hilton Hotels founder Conrad Hilton, shared her disturbing account in support of a bipartisan effort to reauthorize a lapsed program that provides states with resources to prevent child abuse and neglect.
In her testimony before the House Ways and Means Committee, which has jurisdiction over several child welfare programs, Ms. Hilton denounced the residential facilities’ treatment of children in foster care as “criminal” and urged an investment in kinship care.
“I was so proud to be invited to testify about my lived experience and advocacy work in the Ways and Means Committee,” Ms. Hilton said in a statement to The New York Times through her publicist. “Over 50,000 foster youth are warehoused in residential treatment facilities every year, and I hope my testimony inspired the representatives to take a closer look at bolstering community-based resources to ensure we keep vulnerable kids out of facilities.”
