Leading fashion brands including Barbour and PVH, which owns Calvin Klein and Tommy Hilfiger, have said they will pay £400,000 to garment workers in Mauritius after an investigation found that migrant workers were forced to pay thousands of pounds for their jobs...

PVH said it was committed to ensuring migrant workers were reimbursed for recruitment fees and related costs.

Barbour said it was taking Transparentem’s findings seriously and was working with other brands at REAL Garments to resolve the situation as soon as possible. “As an immediate action, we have made a commitment to contribute towards the remediation of impacted workers,” it said.

“We are also expanding our audit processes to ensure that we do everything possible to prevent this happening in the future,” a spokesperson said.

REAL Garments also said it was taking the findings of the investigation seriously and had taken action to remedy the situation for its workers. “We confirm that all the remediations including repayment of local transportation fees have been completed,” it said.

The Foschini Group said: “We have investigated this in full and are comfortable that we have taken appropriate action.”

Asos and Boden did not respond to a request for comment.