CAT/C/60/3 9. The heads of the regional teams remained unchanged: Africa, Hans-Jörg Bannwart; Asia and the Pacific, Dame Lowell Goddard (at the thirtieth session, June Caridad Pagaduan Lopez served as acting head); Europe, Mari Amos; and Latin America, Felipe Villavicencio Terreros. The regional teams examine the implementation of the Optional Protocol within their region, reporting to the Subcommittee in plenary, with recommendations as appropriate. 10. The Subcommittee’s permanent and ad hoc working groups met at each session during 2016. Further information on the meetings is provided in section IV below. Meeting in subgroups and working groups facilitates discussion of a broad range of issues in a focused and participatory fashion. 11. At its twenty-eighth session, the Subcommittee met with representatives of the Convention against Torture Initiative, was briefed by the Omega Research Foundation on the importance of documenting the equipment in use in places of detention, and met with representatives of Defence for Children International, who presented the organization’s practical guide on monitoring places where children are deprived of liberty. 12. At its twenty-ninth session, the Subcommittee held an informal meeting with the States parties and signatories to the Optional Protocol. The meeting was attended by 27 States: Argentina, Belgium, Brazil, Burkina Faso, Chile, Costa Rica, Czechia, Denmark, Ecuador, Estonia, France, Ghana, Guatemala, Honduras, Lithuania, Maldives, Mexico, Morocco, New Zealand, Nicaragua, Panama, Peru, the Philippines, Poland, the Republic of Moldova, Switzerland and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. The Subcommittee was briefed in plenary on the objectives and perspectives of a proposed initiative referred to as the “Grenoble project”. 13. At its thirtieth session, the Subcommittee held a joint meeting, in plenary, with the Committee against Torture to discuss the United Nations Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners (the Nelson Mandela Rules) together with Penal Reform International and the Association for the Prevention of Torture. 14. During its thirtieth session, the Subcommittee held, on 17 November, a conference to celebrate the tenth anniversary of the entry into force of the Optional Protocol. This drew together a broad range of stakeholders, including States parties and other States Members of the United Nations, national preventive mechanisms, United Nations mechanisms and other intergovernmental bodies, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), former members of the Subcommittee, academics and others interested in the Optional Protocol and the prevention of torture and ill-treatment (see para. 53 below). C. Visits conducted during the reporting period 15. At its twenty-ninth session, the Subcommittee confirmed the new approach to visits adopted at its twenty-sixth session, namely, that in order to maximize their preventive potential, visits would not be limited to a single aspect of prevention, but would focus on all those issues the Subcommittee deemed it appropriate to address. The Subcommittee would, however, continue to identify particular objectives for each visit, reflecting what it considered to be most appropriate in the specific circumstances. The Subcommittee undertook its strategic planning at its twenty-ninth and thirtieth sessions in accordance with this approach. 16. The Subcommittee undertook 10 official visits in 2016 in accordance with its mandate under articles 11-13 of the Optional Protocol: to Benin (11-15 January), Cyprus (25-29 January), Chile (4-13 April), Tunisia (12-14 April), Romania (3-12 May), Ukraine (19-26 May but suspended on 25 May and resumed from 5-9 September), Mozambique (59 September), Kazakhstan (20-29 September), Mauritania (24-28 October) and Mexico (1221 December). 17. The Subcommittee suspended its visit to Ukraine on 25 May after it was denied access to places of detention in several parts of the country where it suspected people were deprived of their liberty by the Security Service, despite repeated attempts to gain such access. Given the seriousness of this breach of the Optional Protocol, the delegation 4