Paris Hilton’s anti-child abuse bill gains momentum in Congress

Paris Hilton is calling on Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., to get an anti-child abuse bill passed in the Senate before the end of the year. Hilton is an abuse survivor and has been a leading voice for the Stop Institutional Child Abuse Act.

“Hi Senator Schumer, it’s Paris Hilton,” the hotel heiress said in a new video. “We have so much momentum and I’m hoping that you can uphold your promise of helping pass this legislation this year. It’s deeply important for me to protect youth in troubled teen facilities.”

The bill would address what Hilton said is institutional and widespread abuse at troubled teen treatment facilities around the country.

If passed, the legislation would establish a federal work group to help implement best practices for health and safety at troubled teen facilities, and direct the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine to conduct a study on the use of restraints, seclusion and other restrictive interventions at youth residential programs.

The bill has 17 cosponsors: 10 Republicans and seven Democrats.

“Hopefully, this is not going to be a partisan issue,” Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, said. “Hopefully, we can find a vehicle to include this legislation in. I appreciate the fact that she’s using her celebrity to raise awareness to a real problem.”

To build support for the bill, Hilton went to Washington multiple times where she told congressional lawmakers she was abused during an 11-month stay at the Provo Canyon School in Utah when she was a teenager.

“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,” Hilton said during a 2021 press conference on Capitol Hill.

Hilton also said she was sedated and put in a cell, which she reenacted during a separate trip to Washington in May 2022.

According to ABC News, Hilton’s advocacy has already led to law changes in five states: California, Oregon, Maine, Utah and Missouri.

There isn’t much time left to get the bill approved before the end of the year. If it is passed, it’s likely to be attached to a larger bill that Congress needs to pass.