CAT/C/70/2 Meetings were facilitated by Nora Sveaass (Subcommittee), and Otani Mikiko (Committee on the Rights of the Child) served as rapporteur. 39. The working group presented its report to the thirty-second meeting of the Chairs of human rights treaty bodies, which was held online from 27 to 30 July 2020. At that meeting, it was decided to establish a formal working group on COVID-19, comprising two representatives of each treaty body, with a view to coordinating responses to the impact of COVID-19 and considering how to address the gap in human rights monitoring arising from it. The Subcommittee is represented by Marina Langfeldt and Nora Sveaass. The working group commenced its work in September 2020 and held several meetings. Their work was facilitated by Alvaro Botero (Committee on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families), and Otani Mikiko (Committee on the Rights of the Child) served as rapporteur. IV. Developments relating to working practices A. Visits 40. The Subcommittee had planned to undertake a programme of 10 visits in 2020, having been able to undertake only seven visits in 2019. It commenced its first visit of the year, to Argentina, in March 2020, but it had to be abandoned almost immediately owing to emergency measures relating to COVID-19. The Subcommittee was hoping it would have been able to recommence a reconfigured visiting programme in the autumn of 2020, but unfortunately this was not possible. Further to intense efforts after its forty-second session, the Subcommittee was, however, able to prepare a visit to be undertaken to Tunisia in early December. Owing to last-minute logistical problems, that visit could not take place. 41. The Subcommittee continues to stress the point it made in its eleventh annual report (CAT/C/63/4) – that is, that the inability of the Subcommittee to undertake a minimum of 10 visits per year significantly diminishes the preventive impact of the Optional Protocol and undermines the proactive nature of the system of prevention that it establishes. It is imperative that the Subcommittee be allocated the resources necessary to enable it to have a secretariat of adequate size and to resume its full visiting programme. B. Meeting time 42. The necessity of holding its forty-first and forty-second sessions online has inevitably had an impact on the ability of the Subcommittee to conduct its business. Simultaneous translation was only available for two or four hours each day, and the time periods during which it was offered made it difficult for all members to participate. Consequently, the Subcommittee has requested that its forty-fourth session, to be held in June 2021, be of two weeks’ duration, as previously agreed, in order to allow it to catch up on work that is outstanding. V. Looking forward 43. The visiting work of the Subcommittee was, in effect, put on hold during 2020 as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. The Subcommittee is also aware that the financial outlook for the treaty body system as a whole is precarious and currently unclear as a result of the uncertain state of the 2020 review. The Subcommittee remains very concerned that the 2020 review process may not fully engage with the needs of the Subcommittee, given its unique mandate among the treaty bodies. The Subcommittee has fully embraced carrying out work online with national preventive mechanisms and with States parties to the extent that it is compatible with its mandate, and it will continue to do so. The Subcommittee is, however, particularly anxious that it be understood that it is a visiting mechanism, and that visiting places of detention in States parties is at the heart of its mandate. This cannot be done virtually or remotely. There is no place for a “digital shift” – as has been suggested for the treaty bodies as a whole – when it comes to the work of the Subcommittee. 9