Paris Hilton testified on Capitol Hill about the devastating experience she suffered at a juvenile rehabilitation center while advocating for sweeping reforms to the foster care and juvenile rehabilitation system.
“When I was 16 years old, I was taken from my bed in the middle of the night and transported across state lines to the first of four residential facilities,” Hilton told the House Ways and Means Committee on Wednesday.
‘For two years the staff forced me to take medication and sexually abused me. “They violently restrained me… stripped me naked and placed me in solitary confinement,” the Hilton hotel heiress continued.
Paris Hilton testified on Capitol Hill about her devastating experience at a juvenile rehabilitation center while advocating for sweeping reforms to the foster care and juvenile rehabilitation system.
He said his parents had been “completely manipulated” by the facility and were unaware of the treatment he was enduring.
“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 fantastic few days: just one night earlier she was in New York City to promote her partnership with Motorola Razr, where she DJ’d at the launch event.
Days before he attended Cannes Lions.
Paris Hilton showed off her long, toned legs in a sparkly silver plaid minidress on Tuesday in New York City.
The hearing focused on modernizing child welfare programs. Hilton focused his testimony on eradicating abuse in youth treatment centers.
Urged to reauthorize and reform Title IV-B, which provides funding to states for prevention-oriented community programs to support family reunification and the permanence of children in foster care.
Hilton highlighted the story of 16-year-old Cornelius Fredericks, who entered Lakeside Academy youth center after his mother died and his father was in prison. Fredericks died after workers at the facility restrained him for throwing a sandwich in April 2020. Two workers were found guilty of involuntary manslaughter for the incident.
“The state could have prevented this,” Hilton said.
‘When I was 16 years old. “I was taken from my bed in the middle of the night and transported across state lines to the first four residential facilities,” Hilton told the House Ways and Means Committee.
Hilton called for reauthorizing and reforming Title IV-B, which provides funding to states for prevention-oriented community programs to support family reunification and the permanence of children in foster care.
‘For two years the staff forced me to take medication and sexually abused me. “They violently restrained me… stripped me naked and placed me in solitary confinement,” the Hilton hotel heiress continued.
Meanwhile, Ways and Means Chairman Jason Smith, R-Mo., insisted on the need to reform the foster care system and keep more children at home with their families. “Poverty should not be the only reason a child is removed (from their home),” Smith said.
The president told the story of a Missouri mother and her three children who were living in a shed without electricity or running water when her children were placed in foster care.
“Three years passed between the time the children were removed from their home and the time the court found the mother’s living conditions insufficient,” Smith said.
“Although she had made substantial improvements to both her living and transportation situation, the court found a one-bedroom apartment too small and a three-bedroom house with her boyfriend’s children, resulting in the termination of our rights. of paternity”.
Smith said it costs $30,000 a year to keep a child in foster care in Missouri, and this particular case cost the state $360,000.
‘Spending even a fraction of those fines up front could have provided this family with adequate housing, laundry and bathroom facilities, and assistance in obtaining and maintaining employment. It would also affect the children with their mother and spare them the trauma caused by separation.’
In 2022, about 369,000 American children were in foster care.