Famed entrepreneur and socialite Paris Hilton appeared alongside lawmakers on Capitol Hill Wednesday to urge reform of youth congregate care facilities in the United States.

Hilton is seeking to overhaul the so-called “troubled teen industry” where she and countless others say they have been subjected to trauma and abuse.

What You Need To Know

  • Paris Hilton appeared on Capitol Hill Wednesday to push for federal reform of the “troubled teen industry” – drawing on her own experience at a boarding school for at-risk teens, where she says she endured nearly a year of abuse and trauma

  • Her appearance comes as lawmakers seek to pass the Accountability for Congregate Care Act, 

  • The bill would set standards for congregate care facilities, create a commission to develop best practices to protect children, and would establish a system for reporting abuse

  • In an op-ed published earlier this week, Hilton called on the White House and Congress to take action on youth congregate care facilities by providing funding and requiring states to "prove that children's basic rights are being protected”

Hilton, 40, has become an advocate for reforming such facilities after being sent to such a facility as a teenager, where she says she suffered physical and mental abuse. 

"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 in scratch marks and smeared in blood and so much more," Hilton recalled.

"At Provo Canyon School in Utah, I was given clothes with a number on the tag," she continued. "I was no longer me, I was only  No. 127. I was forced to stay indoors for 11 months straight, no sunlight, no fresh air. These were considered privileges."

“I was awakened one night by two men with handcuffs,” she wrote of her experience in a Washington Post op-ed published Monday. “They asked if I wanted to go 'the easy way or the hard way' before carrying me from my home as I screamed for help. I had no idea why or where I was being taken against my will. I soon learned I was being sent to hell.”

“I wish I could tell you what I experienced or witnessed was unique or even rare, but sadly it’s not,” Hilton said Wednesday, flanked by Reps. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., and Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., who are co-sponsoring the Accountability for Congregate Care Act. Reps. Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., and Adam Schiff, D-Calif., also joined to voice their support for the bill.

“Every day in America, children in congregate care settings are being physically, emotionally and sexually abused,” Hilton said Wednesday.

“Ensuring children are safe from institutional abuse isn’t a Republican or Democratic issue,” she added. “It’s a basic human rights issue that requires immediate attention.”

The Accountability for Congregate Care Act is aimed at ending abuse in what lawmakers and survivors say has become a multi-billion-dollar treatment industry.

“It creates a commission with the Department of Justice to be able to do the research, to require the reports, to assemble the data, to establish best practices and set up a system for oversight and accountability and it provides grants to states to be able to implement these improvement measures,” Merkley told reporters Wednesday.

"An estimated 120,000 young people are housed in congregate-care facilities at any given time across the country, many of them placed through the child welfare and juvenile justice systems," Hilton wrote in the Post op-ed. "But there is little oversight. State inspections are typically minimal, and there is no federal or other organized data tracking placements, reporting critical incidents or monitoring quality of care."

Among other things, the Accountability for Congregate Care Act would set standards for congregate care facilities treating adolescents, create a commission to develop best practices to protect children, and establish reporting systems for abuse.

"I am confident that this bill will create a world where all youth have the support and opportunity they need to heal, thrive and not just survive," Hilton said.

Hilton was joined Wednesday by others who say they endured abuse at youth congregate care facilities.

These survivors included Caroline Cole, a 31-year-old California native. On Wednesday, she said her experience at a reform school in New York led to post-traumatic stress disorder – and later, homelessness and addiction.

Now, Cole is the director of government relations at Breaking Code Silence, a nonprofit that seeks to end abuse at such facilities and empower survivors to heal and promote social change.

"Physical restraint, solitary confinement, psychological abuse, staff, pitting child against child, and, and being confined in a way that can really only be compared to incarceration," Cole recounted Wednesday of her experience at the New York facility.

“What reform means to me, is us being able to create a world in a society where we have policy and systems that support young people, instead of pathologizing them for typical adolescent experiences,” she added.

In her Washington Post op-ed, Hilton called on President Biden and members of Congress to enact a “basic federal 'bill of rights' for youths in congregate care.”

“Every child placed Congress to take action on youth congregate care facilities by providing funding and requiring states toin these facilities should have a right to a safe, humane environment, free from threats and practices of solitary confinement, and physical or chemical restraint at the whim of staff,” Hilton wrote.

“Had such rights existed and been enforced, I and countless other survivors could have been spared the abuse and trauma that have haunted us into adulthood," she added.