More than two months af­ter he was charged with two sex­u­al of­fences in­volv­ing a child, the Di­vi­sion of Health, Well­ness and So­cial Pro­tec­tion of the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA), yes­ter­day con­firmed that Hanif Ben­jamin is no longer af­fil­i­at­ed with it.

The for­mer chair­man of the Chil­dren’s Au­thor­i­ty is due to re­turn to court on Jan­u­ary 16 next year af­ter he was placed on $170,000 bail af­ter he was slapped with sex charges in­volv­ing a mi­nor.

Ben­jamin, a clin­i­cal and foren­sic trau­ma­tol­o­gist and clin­i­cal ther­a­pist, who served as chair­man of the au­thor­i­ty be­tween 2017-2020, is ac­cused of en­gag­ing in sex­u­al ac­tiv­i­ty in the pres­ence of a child and sex­u­al com­mu­ni­ca­tion with the child.

In a state­ment, the Di­vi­sion said that the ac­tion tak­en re­flects its ze­ro-tol­er­ance pol­i­cy for mis­con­duct and its com­mit­ment to in­tegri­ty and ac­count­abil­i­ty.

The PNM To­ba­go Coun­cil and the In­no­v­a­tive De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Al­liance, (IDA) had called for Ben­jamin’s im­me­di­ate dis­missal, ar­gu­ing that some­one fac­ing crim­i­nal charges should not con­tin­ue to hold a lead­er­ship role in child pro­tec­tion and so­cial ser­vices.

The Di­vi­sion said it main pri­or­i­ty re­mains safe­guard­ing vul­ner­a­ble pop­u­la­tions and tak­ing de­ci­sive ac­tion when al­le­ga­tions arise.