The Municipality of Phnom Penh announced on 6 February 2007 that they had granted a 99-year lease for the amount of US$79,002,000 for 133 hectares of land surrounding and including Boeung Kak Lake.

[5] The lease was given to a small private development called Shukaku Inc, which is owned by the wife of Lao Meng Khin, a crony senator for the Cambodian People´s Party (CPP).

In the lease the municipality predicted that 4,252 families in Sangkat Chak Khan Daun Penh and other areas around the lake would be affected.

[1] The development group Shukaku Inc. wanted to lease the land for the production of trade and service places for domestic and international tourists, as well as for building high-end condominiums.

[6] Shukaku has termed the development of the lake "Phnom Penh City Center", and has built an office, roads, and drainage infrastructure on site.

[8] Because of the abolishment of records during the Khmer Rouge period, it is difficult to prove ownership and titles of the homes for some of the people living around the lake.

Article 30 of the law stated that land continuously occupied without contestation for five years before 2001 could be claimed for documented private ownership.

[9] According to Article 15 of the Cambodian land law, water bodies, lakes and rivers such as Boeung Kak are all considered state property.

The project has as a goal to over 15 years manage natural resources and promote equal land distribution to the people of Cambodia.

In the post World War I era a canal was built linking the Boeung Kak Lake to the larger river, Tonle Sap, which lies just above the Mekong.

Additionally the open spaces that surrounded Boeung Kak Lake are important for a normally densely populated city, with an increased number of vehicles and pollution.

[16] New roads and buildings are clearly visible on updated satellite views of google maps (in place of Boeung Kak Lake).

Although the numbers vary, around 3,500 families, which is the equivalent of 17,500 people, have been forcibly evicted from their homes surrounding Boeung Kak Lake since August 2008 in order for the building project of Shukaku Inc. to take place.

After pressure from numerous non-governmental organizations and international actors, around 600 of the remaining families have been given land titles under a concession by the prime minister himself, made in 2011.

[5] Heng Mom, one of the residents of Boeung Kak Lake has given a statement to BBC indicating that the compensation is not nearly enough to get land around Phnom Penh.

Since 1990 approximately 11 percent of the population of Phnom Penh have been evicted from their homes or relocated to places that lack infrastructure and access to public goods.

[19] In February 2013 Shukaku Inc. was praised for "reducing poverty" in a letter from the minister of Economy and Finance, Keat Chhon to the development company.

After pressure from the Boeung Kak community the World Bank stated in 2010 that it would not resume the loans to Cambodia until the conflict over the land and the eviction of people has been resolved.

[22] The arrest of the Boeung Kak 13 was brought to the attention of the non-state actors Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch.

[23] The women have continued their activist work and Tep Vanny has received international recognition for the documentary "Even a bird needs a nest".

[24] On 10 December 2011 a special rapporteur from the UN visited the Boeung Kak community and wrote in a report that he walked away "encouraged by the determination shown by the women residents of the area to defend their rights peacefully".