5. Concluding remarks and recommendations Lithuania should be applauded for preventing a potentially significant statelessness problem after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, through the “zero option”, and through its continued implementation of a status regularization procedure, under which certain categories of stateless persons can have their citizenship restored, or acquire citizenship through a simplified procedure. Nonetheless, some persons who were unable or unwilling to benefit from the “zero option” have remained stateless in Lithuanian to date. Mapping the exact size of the population and profiles of stateless persons in Lithunian has proved challenging due to certain gaps in the data. While the Residents’ Register and Migration Department database contain data on some stateless persons, other who may be stateless such as persons with “unresolved” legal status and “unreturnable” persons are not included in the statistics. Furthermore, the composition of the group of persons recorded as having their citizenship “not indicated” or “undetermined” in the Residents’ Register and in the Statistical Yearbook is unclear. Therefore, quantitative and qualitative data on the stateless population in Lithuania could be improved by the inclusion of these groups, and by a more thorough understanding of the background, profile and aspirations of the stateless population. The definition of a stateless person set out in Article 1 of the 1954 Convention has not been expressly incorporated into the national law. Furthermore, Lithuania does not have a procedure to determine if a person meets the definition of a stateless persons, and thus is entitled to a status, residence permit, and the rights of stateless persons set out in the 1954 Convention. Nonetheless, nationality or statelessness is assessed to a certain degree in asylum and removal procedures, as part of the establishment of the identity of the person concerned. There is no right of appeal or ability to contest a person’s nationality being incorrectly registered though. If a stateless persons is issued a residence permit on other grounds (than their status as stateless) in Lithuania, they are largely guaranteed the rights they would be entitled to under the 1954 Convention. There is, however, a need to amended some law and policy to ensure full compliance in the areas of access to social welfare, issuance of identity documents, access to legal aid and ensuring that all stateless children have access to primary education. Lithuanian should be commended for its progress in this area, including recent amendments to extend the right to work to “unreturnable” persons who have been issued a temporary residence permit.394 Lithuanian law has quite strong safeguards against statelessness with regard to persons born abroad to stateless permanent residents of Lithuania, foundlings, and in relation to loss, renunciation, and deprivation of Lithuanian nationality. With regard to the deprivation of nationality, the language in the Lithuanian law relating to some instances where a citizen can be deprivation of nationality is, however, broader than that set out in the 1961 Convention. The requirements in Article 1 of the 1961 Convention, on the granting of nationality to children born on the terrioty who would otherwise be stateless, have not been fully incorporated into Lithuanian law. While Lithuania should be commended for granting nationality automatically at birth to some of the children born stateless in its territory, the conditions for granting nationality by application to other categories of 394 86 Draft Law Amending the Law on the Legal Status of Aliens No XIIP-3291, Article 51, available at http://goo.gl/UKSwIy. M A P P I N G S TAT E L E S S N E S S I N L I T H UA N I A