Fragile Peace, Persistent Systems: Child Recruitment through the Lens of the Transformative Justice Cube

This master's dissertation won the Dean's Prize for the best dissertation by a student at the London campus in 2024-25. Peace without transformation reproduces violence. In Colombia, child recruitment declined briefly after the 2016 Havana Accord, only to surge again in recent years. This thesis argues that recruitment is not a residue of conflict, but a systemic practice sustained by capitalism, coloniality, and patriarchy. Bound to the logics of capitalism, coloniality, and patriarchy, it governs symptoms while leaving systemic causes intact. To address this gap, the study develops the Transformative Justice Cube – a conceptual model that systematises explanatory dimensions, systemic logics, and levels of response. Applied to Colombia, the Cube reveals why recruitment endures and offers a framework with wider relevance for analysing systemic violence.