WASHINGTON, DC - DECEMBER 17: Celebrity hotel heiress Paris Hilton is photographed by a member of her team as she rides an Airwheel electric scooter luggage outside the U.S. Capitol on the day the House of Representatives is set to vote on The Stop Institutional Child Abuse Act on December 17, 2024 in Washington, DC. Citing her own traumatizing experience at Provo Canyon School in Utah when she was a teenager, Hilton has lobbied for three years for the legislations that would place greater federal safeguards on institutional youth treatment programs. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
A bill targeted at preventing childhood abuse in youth residential programs and backed by Paris Hilton was passed on Wednesday.
Hilton is continuing to speak out for victims of child abuse following the trauma she allegedly endured as a teen at a Utah boarding school.
“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 said in a post on Instagram. “I did this for the younger version of myself and the youth who were senselessly taken from us by the Troubled Teen Industry.”
The Stop Institutional Child Abuse Act passed the House with bipartisan support on Wednesday after passing the Senate on Dec. 11.
In 2020, the 42-year-old revealed that the 11 months she had spent at Provo Canyon School were “continuous torture.”
The star alleges that staff would bully her and were “physically abusive” so that the kids would be too frightened to disobey them.
In an open letter that Hilton posted to her Instagram story calling on members of the U.S. House of Representatives to pass the bill, she revealed that advocating for change has been the “most challenging and rewarding” experience of her life.
A spokesperson for Hilton revealed that the star had been traveling to Washington, D.C., every six to ten months since October 2021 to try to get Congress to reform youth residential treatment facilities.
Hilton noted that when the bill was passed on Wednesday, it was “one of the best moments of my life.”
“It was proof that when we listen to survivors and put politics aside, we can create real, meaningful change,” the star said. “But this journey isn’t over. I can’t celebrate until this bill becomes law, and now it’s up to the U.S. House of Representatives to finish what the Senate started.”
“I always believed in turning pain into purpose, in creating something good from something dark. Survivors like me have carried this fight for far too long,” she continued. “Now, I ask you to carry it across the finish line. Let’s make this a moment that our country can be proud of — a moment when we choose to protect the most vulnerable among us.”
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