WATCH – MISS HILTON GOES TO WASHINGTON –
Oct. 21, 2021 – A group of congressional Democrats said Wednesday that they plan to work with Paris Hilton to create new regulations to prevent the abuse of children in facilities for troubled teens.
Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., said he is drafting legislation that would give children in youth facilities the right to call their parents, be free from restraints, and have access to clean drinking water and nutritional meals — none of which is currently ensured for thousands of children in these facilities nationwide. Hilton revealed her experience as an adolescent in four youth facilities in a YouTube documentary last year. In an interview with NBC News on Wednesday, Hilton said that during her time in those programs, she was choked, slapped, spied on while showering and deprived of sleep.”There are thousands of these types of schools, and there is almost 200,000 children every year put into these places,” Hilton said. “And every day, children are being physically, emotionally, verbally, psychologically and sexually abused.”
The soon-to-be introduced legislation, as described by lawmakers, would make sweeping changes across several types of youth facilities, including those that care for foster children and children with mental health disorders and rely on taxpayer funding, as well as institutions that rely on payment from parents to take in their disobedient teens. Programs that receive no public funding currently face no federal regulation. A sweeping report released this month by the National Disability Rights Network, an advocacy group, outlined egregious examples of mistreatment in youth facilities, including excessive use of physical restraints of children, overuse of psychiatric medication and sexual abuse by facility employees.
