Paris Hilton-Championed Youth Treatment Bill Passes House

Celebrity hotel heiress Paris Hilton poses for photographs with fans and supporters outside the U.S. Capitol on the day the House of Representatives is set to vote on the Stop Institutional Child Abuse Act in Washington on Dec. 17, 2024. Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

Paris Hilton is making strides for youth welfare on Capitol Hill, as the House passed the “Stop Institutional Child Abuse Act” with overwhelming bipartisan support on Dec. 18.

The measure passed by a vote of 373–33 after unanimously clearing the Senate last week, and will now head to President Joe Biden’s desk.

The bill calls for increased oversight of youth residential treatment facilities and establishes a process to “support and implement best practices regarding the health and safety, care, treatment, and appropriate placement of youth.”

Further, the bill would require the Department of Health & Human Services to work with other agencies to study and make additional recommendations about oversight of youth residential programs.

“When the U.S. Senate came together in a rare show of unity to pass the Stop Institutional Child Abuse Act unanimously on Wednesday December 11th, it was one of the best moments of my life,” Hilton wrote on social media.

“It was proof that when we listen to survivors and put politics aside, we can create real, meaningful change. But this journey isn’t over. I can’t celebrate until this bill becomes law,” she said.

The 43-year-old has spent years advocating for reauthorization of funding for child welfare services and more oversight of youth residential treatment facilities, an industry she said she suffered under in her youth.

“This moment is proof that our voices matter, that speaking out can spark change, and that no child should ever endure the horrors of abuse in silence,” Hilton wrote in a social media post.

In 2021, the hotel heiress and mother of two opened up about her experience at Provo Canyon School in Utah, where she says she suffered physical and mental abuse by staff.

“I did this for the younger version of myself and the youth who were senselessly taken from us by the Troubled Teen industry,” she said.

At age 17, Hilton attended the school for 11 months, recalling staff members would beat her, force her to take unknown pills, watch her shower, and send her to solitary confinement without clothes as punishment.

As a result of her treatment, Hilton said she has suffered nightmares and insomnia for years, describing the experience as “traumatizing.”

The events were recounted in her documentary, “This is Paris,” released in 2020, before she testified at a state Senate committee hearing at the Utah Capitol, and eventually before the House Ways and Means Committee in Washington.

The Provo institution is now under new ownership, and in a statement in 2021, said it “cannot comment on the operations or student experience prior to” August 2000, but “acknowledge there are are individuals over the many years who believe they were not helped by the program.”

According to a recent Senate Finance Committee investigation, children enrolled in residential treatment centers are subjected to “routine” physical, sexual, and emotional abuse.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed legislation in September supported by Hilton that increases public transparency and protection of youth against the “inappropriate use of restraints and isolation in residential treatment facilities.”