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Paris Hilton glams up on Capitol Hill as she exposes devastating child abuse stories including her own
Paris Hilton testified on Capitol Hill about the devastating experience she suffered in a youth rehabilitation facility as she advocated for sweeping reforms to the foster and youth rehab system.
'When I was 16 years old, I was ripped from my bed in the middle of night and transported across state lines to the first of four residential facilities,' Hilton told the House Ways and Means Committee Wednesday.
'For two years I was force-fed medications and sexually abused by the staff. I was violently restrained ... stripped naked, thrown in solitary confinement,' the Hilton hotels heiress went on.
Paris Hilton testified on Capitol Hill about the devastating experience she suggered through in a youth rehabilitation facility as she advocated for sweeping reforms to the foster and youth rehab system
She said her parents had been 'completely manipulated' by the facilities and were unaware of the treatment she was enduring. In the past she's said her parents had been 'conned' into believe her ADD could be fixed with 'tough love.'
'This $23 billion-a-year industry sees this population as dollar signs and operates without meaningful oversight,' Hilton said.
The blonde bombshell and mother of two has had a whirlwind few days - just one night earlier she was in New York City to promote her partnership with Motorola Razr, where DJ'd the launch event.
Days earlier she attended Cannes Lions.
The hearing centered on modernizing child welfare programs. Hilton focused her testimony on eradicating abuse in youth treatment facilities.
She urged for the reauthorization and reform of Title IV-B - which offers funding to states for community-based, prevention-oriented programs to support family reunification and permanency for children in foster care.
Hilton highlighted the story of 16-year-old Cornelius Fredericks, who entered youth facility Lakeside Academy after his mother died and his dad was in prison. Fredericks died after he was pinned down by facility workers for throwing a sandwich in April 2020. Two workers were convicted of involuntary manslaughter over the incident.
'The state could have prevented this,' Hilton said.
'When I was 16 years old. I was ripped from my bed in the middle of night and transported across state lines to the first four residential facilities,' Hilton told the House Ways and Means Committee
Hilton urged for the reauthorization and reform of Title IV-B - which offers funding to states for community-based, prevention-oriented programs to support family reunification and permanency for children in foster care
'For two years I was force-fed medications and sexually abused by the staff. I was violently restrained ... stripped naked, thrown in solitary confinement,' the Hilton hotels heiress went on
Ways and Means Chairman Jason Smith, R-Mo., meanwhile, pushed for the need to reform the foster system - and to keep more kids at home with their families. 'Poverty should not be the sole reason a child is removed [from the home],' said Smith.
The chairman told a story of a Missouri mother and three children who had been living in a shed with no electricity or running water when her children were taken into foster custody.
'Three years passed between the time the children were removed from their home and the time the court deemed mom's living arrangements insufficient,' said Smith.
'Even though she had made substantive, substantial improvement to both her housing and transportation situation, the court deemed a one bedroom apartment too small and a three bedroom house with her boyfriend children, this resulted in termination of our parental rights.'
Smith said it costs $30,000 per year to keep a child in the foster system in Missouri, and this particular case cost the state $360,000.
'Spending even a fraction of those fines at the front end could have provided this family, with adequate housing, laundry, and bathroom facilities and assistance in obtaining and maintaining employment. It also would affect the children with their mother and spare them trauma caused by separation.'
In 2022 some 369,000 American children were in foster care.
Paris Hilton showed off her long, toned legs in a sparkly silver checkered mini dress on Tuesday in New York City
Smith is advocating for the Title IV-B system to be more focused on 'interventions' that prevent child abuse and neglect rather than forcing children into the foster system and placing children in 'kinship care' with family members rather into the homes off strangers or facilities.
The committee is also pushing to elevate the role of courts and speed up adjudication of such cases and cut down on the time children spend away from their families, improve oversight of youth residential treatment facilities and address the 'caseworker crisis' - the child welfare workforce has a high turnover rate of 30 percent.