Reality TV star and Hilton Hotels heiress Paris Hilton visited the White House on Tuesday on her second visit to the nation's capital to lobby for a child abuse law.
“What an impactful Day 1 in Washington, DC,” Hilton tweeted on Tuesday evening.
“It has been so encouraging speaking with policy staff, senators and representatives in the White House and on Capitol Hill to advocate for children placed in residential treatment programmes.
“I will not stop until change is made.”
A White House staffer told CNN that Hilton “was at the White House with state and national advocates as part of her advocacy efforts to improve protections of youths in residential programmes and facilities”.
Hilton “met with policy staff where she and other survivors shared their powerful stories and discussed issues pertinent to the protection of institutionalised youth in America”, the White House staffer said.
The star has personal experience with abuse at residential care facilities as she suffered physical and emotional abuse when she was sent to boarding school in Utah as a teenager. She shared details of the abuse in the YouTube documentary This is Paris in 2020.
On a previous visit to Washington to lobby on the issue in October 2021, she spoke outside the US Capitol building about the “troubled teen industry” she and other survivors are fighting against.
The Accountability for Congregate Care Act would give more rights to children in youth centres and increase oversight of the industry, giving children in such facilities rights to clean drinking water and healthy food.
It would also allow children in congregate care centres to call their parents.
Chuck Grassley, a senator from Iowa, posted a photo with Hilton after their meeting on Tuesday,
“Met with Paris Hilton to discuss how we can stop abuse of children in residential care facilities,” he tweeted.
