Crime

Paris Hilton, the American socialite and media figure, has told a congressional panel looking into strengthening child welfare protections that she was “force-fed medications and sexually abused by staff” while she was institutionalized as a teenager.

Hilton, an outspoken advocate for better protections for children in youth facilities, told the House committee on ways and means on Wednesday that she had been “violently restrained and dragged down hallways, stripped naked and thrown into solitary confinement”.

The 43-year-old has previously described how she was subjected to “a parent-approved kidnapping” at four different youth facilities as her parents searched for solutions to her rebellious behavior and “fell for the misleading marketing of the troubled teen industry”.

She has characterized the “tough love” teen course-correction business as a $50bn industry that includes therapeutic boarding schools, military-style boot camps, juvenile justice facilities and behavior-modification programs.

On Wednesday, the reality TV star said she found her institutional experience “isolating and traumatic” and that she had been prevented from alerting her parents to what was happening because phone calls were monitored.

“It’s really difficult to tell anyone in the outside world. A lot of these kids are not believed because these places tell the parents they’re being lied to and manipulated because they want to go home,” Hilton told the panel.