63 International cooperation In 2017, the National Preventive Mechanism (NPM) cooperated with other countries’ preventive mechanisms and exchanged information and experiences with a number of international parties. The NPM attended conferences, meetings and seminars, and received visiting delegations that wanted to learn more about the torture prevention work in Norway. UN Committee recommends follow-up of the thematic report on prison conditions for women in Norway On 7 November 2017, the UN Committee on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women examined Norway’s follow-up of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW). In that connection, several parties submitted alternative reports to the UN Committee on the situation for women in Norway. On 23 January 2017, the Parliamentary Ombudsman submitted its 2016 thematic report on women in prison. At its meeting with the Committee prior to the examination of Norway, the Norwegian National Human Rights Institution (NIM) also placed particular emphasis on the Parliamentary Ombudsman’s thematic report. Several of the recommendations in the thematic report were followed up in CEDAW’s Concluding Observations for Norway of 17 November 2017. The Committee pointed to several conditions described in the thematic report, and expressed concern about the poor physical conditions in prisons where female inmates serve, the fact that women are at greater risk of serving their sentences in prisons with poor access to appropriate outdoor areas, and that the health services are not adapted to women, including mental health services and substance abuse rehabilitation services. The Committee went on to recommend that Norway step up its efforts to improve the prison conditions for women so that they are equal to that of male inmates, and to improve the health services for female inmates. The Norwegian authorities now have two years to follow up the recommendations. Kirsten Sandberg gave a presentation about assessments of the best interest of the child during the Nordic NPM network meeting in Oslo. The Parliamentary Ombudsman’s thematic report on women in prison has also been sent to the UN Subcommittee for the Prevention of Torture (SPT), and distributed through the global Ombudsman network and other newsletters. Nordic network of national preventive mechanisms Two meetings of the Nordic network of national preventive mechanisms were held during 2017. The first took place in Helsinki in January, and the topic of the meeting was methods, with emphasis on interview techniques. The first day was set aside for sharing experience and discussion between the Nordic countries. A course on interview techniques was held on day two, focusing on interviews with patients in mental health care.