From 1919, the International Labour Organization sought to improve protections for workers globally. Concurrently, the organization was dominated by colonial powers whose economies relied on the exploitation of colonized workers. This article explores how the International Labour Organization navigated this contradictory situation during the interwar period, focussing on its approach to child labour in British Africa. The introduction of a universal minimum employment age and the abolition of child labour were founding goals of the International Labour Organization. However, colonial powers wanted to maintain the extensive employment of children and the use of child labour in their colonies. Britain used its influence within the International Labour Organization to promote racialized constructions of childhood and to pluralize working children’s rights in International Labour Organization instruments. While the International Labour Organization’s tripartite structure did also provide a forum through which colonial labour practices could be challenged, Britain and its supporters ultimately succeeded in constructing a two-tier system of international labour law which rendered colonized children less protected than children in the industrialized West. In creating colonial exceptions, the International Labour Organization pursued and promoted a hierarchical and exclusionary form of internationalism. Overall, the article provides new insights into the development of the International Labour Organization and its legislation, as well as broader histories of childhood and of internationalism.

从1919年起，国际劳工组织（International Labour Organization）寻求改善全球工人的保护。同时，该组织被殖民大国所控制，殖民大国的经济依赖对殖民工人的剥削。本文探讨了国际劳工组织在两次世界大战期间如何应对这一矛盾局势，重点探讨了其在英属非洲对待童工问题的方法。引入普遍的最低就业年龄和废除童工是国际劳工组织的目标。但是，殖民国希望维持儿童的广泛就业和在其殖民地使用童工。英国利用其在国际劳工组织中的影响力来促进童年时期的种族化建设，并使国际劳工组织文书中的在职儿童权利多元化。尽管国际劳工组织的三方结构确实提供了一个可以挑战殖民地劳工实践的论坛，但英国及其支持者最终成功地建立了两层国际劳工法体系，使殖民地儿童的保护程度低于西方工业化国家的儿童。 。在创造殖民地例外时，国际劳工组织追求并促进了等级制度和排他性的国际主义形式。总体而言，本文为国际劳工组织及其立法的发展提供了新的见解，