Abstract:

They're known as the BK13-thirteen women who live around what used to be Boeung Kak Lake, near the center of Phnom Penh. The lake has been filled in and most residents have been relocated, their houses flattened-all part of Cambodia's race to join Asia's development frenzy. While an estimated half million people have been evicted across the capital city, the BK13 aren't going anywhere. They're going to defend their homes with every ounce of energy they can muster. This program follows the BK13 story as well as wider dilemmas of land use facing 21st-century Cambodia, which has yet to find a way out of the anti-ownership chaos created by the Khmer Rouge. Scenes of forced evictions, squalid relocation camps, and Phnom Penh citizens boiling over with outrage clearly illustrate the struggling Southeast Asian country's deep-rooted challenges.