Paris Hilton testified this Wednesday before a United States Congressional committee on the “inhuman treatment” who suffered in a internship during his adolescence and asked to modernize child welfare programs to prevent other young people from having the same experience.
“I am here to be the voice of those who cannot speak”said the socialite after detailing some of the alleged abuses she suffered in the first of the four behavior correction homes where she was as a youth.
“They forced me to take medication and sexually abused me. “They grabbed me violently and dragged me through the corridors, they stripped me naked and locked me in solitary confinement.”explained the businesswoman and singer as well.
Hilton, who was a boarder at the school Provo Canyon In his adolescence, he had already mentioned that episode from his past in his memoirs. “Paris: The Memoir” and in various media interviews.
This Wednesday in Washington he indicated that his parents were “completely deceived and manipulated by this for-profit industry” about him “inhuman treatment” of which he was being a victim.
“So can you imagine the treatment that the State can provide by not having people who are regularly inspecting them?” he delved.
Hilton, who in recent years has become an advocate for children’s rights, presented the case of a 16-year-old girl living in a public foster home who was murdered for having “innocently throwing a sandwich in the cafeteria”.
According to the influencer, the young woman was “violently restrained for ten minutes” at the hands of eight staff members: “She was killed on the dining room floor in front of dozens of children… The State could have prevented this”.
The DJ, a mother of two young children, expressed support for the Ways and Means Committee’s bipartisan effort to reauthorize Title IV-B of the Social Security Act on child welfare, which expired in 2021.
She also stressed the importance of financial support for families so that they do not have to take their children to these centres and demanded decent conditions for those who have to live in these spaces.
“It costs approximately $800 to $1,000 a day to place a youth in a foster care facility, that is significantly more than it would cost to care for them in their own communities. What is more important, protecting corporate profits or protecting the lives of young people?”he questioned.
In 2021, Hilton also spoke about her teenage experience before a state Senate committee at the Utah Capitol to lobby for the creation of a bill requiring more government oversight of such institutions.
EFE
