Velma Demerson (September 4, 1920 – May 13, 2019) was a Canadian woman who was imprisoned in 1939 in Ontario for being in a relationship with a Chinese immigrant, Harry Yip.
It provided a reason that was formulated for police to arrest women who failed to comply with the status quo in Canadian society at the time.
[1] Demerson, a white Canadian of European ancestry, was arrested at the home of her fiancé, Harry Yip, by two constables after they had entered the apartment with her father who stated, "That's her.
The Ontario law, which was not repealed until 1964, allowed the government to arrest and institutionalize women between the ages of 16 and 35 for such behaviour as promiscuity, pregnancy out of wedlock, public drunkenness, prostitution, or vagrancy.
She was subjected to several involuntary medical procedures by a "reformatory" doctor, a leading eugenics practitioner who was searching for evidence of physical deficiencies contributing to the moral defectives of "unmanageable women.
Frustrated that her son was also subject to racial taunting at school, she took him to Hong Kong to avoid bigotry and obtained work teaching English and shorthand to Chinese students.
She gave up hope of reuniting the family, she fled to Vancouver, joined political groups and became involved in the peace movement and protests during the Vietnam War.
After retiring, Demerson moved back to Toronto in the late 1980s, began searching through government documents and researching her case to come to terms with what had happened to her in her youth, and wrote the book Incorrigible about her experience.
She ultimately sought out the paralegal Harry Kopyto, who became interested in her case and conducted legal research into the Female Refuges Act under which she was imprisoned.
[5] Later that year, however, she settled out of court and received an apology from the Attorney-General of Ontario and financial compensation in an undisclosed amount from the provincial government.