A detailed legal guide to sexual harassment and workplace misconduct in Turkey, explaining HR investigation duties, employer liability, employee rights, data protection, disciplinary action, and compliance under Turkish law.
Sexual harassment is not only a conduct issue. In Turkey, it is also a labor-law issue, a personality-rights issue, a discrimination issue, a workplace safety issue, a data-protection issue, and in many cases a criminal-law issue. For that reason, employers cannot treat a harassment complaint as a mere interpersonal conflict. When an allegation arises, HR is expected to act within a legal framework shaped by the Labour Act No. 4857, the Turkish Code of Obligations No. 6098, the Occupational Health and Safety Law No. 6331, the Personal Data Protection Law No. 6698, Law No. 6701 on the Human Rights and Equality Institution of Türkiye, and the Turkish Penal Code. A poorly handled investigation may expose the employer to termination disputes, compensation claims, discrimination complaints, data-protection sanctions, and criminal-process complications. (natlex.ilo.org)
For HR departments, the central legal reality is this: the duty is not limited to reacting after harm is complete. Turkish law expects employers to maintain a workplace order that protects employees’ dignity and to take necessary measures to prevent psychological and sexual harassment and to stop additional harm once such conduct occurs. This means HR investigation duties begin before the first interview of witnesses. They begin with policy design, reporting channels, manager training, recordkeeping rules, interim protection measures, and a response protocol that treats harassment as a compliance matter rather than an embarrassment to be managed quietly.
The legal basis of the employer’s duty
The most direct statutory foundation is Article 417 of the Turkish Code of Obligations. It requires the employer to protect and respect the employee’s personality in the service relationship, to ensure an order in the workplace consistent with the principles of honesty, and in particular to take the necessary measures so that employees are not exposed to psychological or sexual harassment and that those who have been exposed do not suffer further harm. The same article also ties employer misconduct to contractual liability for resulting harm to personality rights, bodily integrity, or life. This provision is critical because it makes workplace harassment prevention and response a positive employer duty, not merely a discretionary internal preference.
The Labour Act reinforces this framework through specific termination rules. Article 24 gives the employee the right to terminate the contract for just cause if the employer sexually harasses the employee, or if another employee or a third person in the workplace sexually harasses the employee and the employer fails to take adequate measures after being informed. Article 25, on the employer side, allows summary termination if an employee sexually harasses another employee. These two provisions are especially important for HR. They show that Turkish labor law does not treat sexual harassment as a marginal disciplinary topic. It treats it as conduct serious enough to justify immediate termination rights for both sides, depending on who committed the act and how the employer responded. (natlex.ilo.org)
The Occupational Health and Safety Law adds another layer. Article 4 imposes a general duty on the employer to ensure workers’ safety and health in every aspect related to work and to provide organization, information, and training. Article 16 requires the employer to inform workers and workers’ representatives about workplace risks and protective measures. Article 17 requires adequate safety and health training on recruitment, transfer, job change, equipment change, and new technology. Article 18 requires consultation with workers or their representatives. Although Law No. 6331 is not drafted specifically as an anti-harassment code, it strengthens the idea that the employer must actively identify risks, inform staff, train them, and build participatory safety structures rather than remain passive until a crisis occurs.
Sexual harassment is also a discrimination and equality issue
Turkish equality law expands the picture beyond classical labor law. Law No. 6701 defines harassment as intimidating, humiliating, degrading, or embarrassing behavior, including behavior of a psychological or sexual nature, intended to degrade a person or having that degrading effect based on one of the protected grounds listed in the law. The same law also classifies mobbing as deliberate acts designed to alienate, exclude, or push a person out of work on discriminatory grounds. It recognizes direct discrimination, indirect discrimination, harassment, mobbing, failure to make reasonable accommodation, and retaliation against those who bring or participate in proceedings to enforce equal treatment.
That matters for HR because workplace sexual harassment rarely stays isolated from broader power structures. A complaint may involve sex discrimination, retaliation after refusal, exclusion from promotion, hostile scheduling, reputational smearing, or pressure to resign. Law No. 6701 also makes clear that the employment sphere includes job applications, selection criteria, hiring, workplace conditions, promotion, in-service training, social benefits, and termination. It even expressly states that an employer may not reject an application because of pregnancy, maternity, or child care. So an HR investigation must not be framed too narrowly. The question is not only whether an offensive act occurred. The question is whether the surrounding treatment of the complainant created a broader pattern of unequal treatment or retaliation.
The criminal-law overlay
The Turkish Penal Code adds a separate and important dimension. Article 105 criminalizes sexual harassment. The offence is complaint-based in its basic form, and the statute expressly increases the penalty where the act is committed by abusing hierarchy or a service relationship or by taking advantage of the ease provided by working in the same workplace. The article also states that if the conduct forces the victim to leave the job, the sentence may not be less than one year. This is highly relevant for HR departments because it confirms that workplace sexual harassment is not merely a violation of etiquette or policy. In some cases it is a criminal offence with workplace-specific aggravating features.
From a compliance standpoint, this means HR should not promise outcomes it cannot control. An internal investigation is not a substitute for a criminal complaint, and a criminal complaint is not a substitute for an internal investigation. The employer still has duties under labor law and contract law even if the employee chooses not to file a criminal complaint. At the same time, where a complaint is filed or likely, HR should preserve records carefully, avoid contaminating evidence, and coordinate internally so that employment measures do not obstruct legal reporting or later judicial review. The legal tracks may run in parallel. (natlex.ilo.org)
What HR investigation duties mean in practice
A legally sound HR response starts with intake. Once the employer is informed, the issue is no longer safely treated as hearsay or workplace gossip. Article 24 of the Labour Act is explicit that where the employee is sexually harassed by another employee or by third persons in the establishment, the employer must take adequate measures after being informed. That statutory language is crucial. It means the employer’s liability risk can arise not only from the original misconduct, but also from inaction after notice. For HR, the first operational duty is therefore to register the complaint, secure an initial account, assess immediate risk, and decide whether interim protection is necessary. (natlex.ilo.org)
Interim measures are often the most legally sensitive step. In some situations the safest immediate measure may be temporary physical separation, remote reassignment, supervisory adjustment, leave, access restriction, or another protective arrangement. But such measures should be proportionate and should avoid punishing the complainant. Turkish law does not provide a single codified list of interim harassment measures. The employer must therefore infer its response from the combined duties to protect personality rights, maintain a workplace order consistent with honesty, and take necessary measures against harassment. That is why documentation matters. HR should be able to explain why a temporary measure was chosen, how it reduced risk, and why it was not itself retaliatory or discriminatory.
The investigation itself should be prompt, impartial, and genuinely fact-finding. That means interviewing the complainant, the accused, and relevant witnesses; reviewing messages, logs, access records, meeting data, or other role-relevant evidence; and creating a consistent chronology. Turkish law does not require HR to use courtroom procedure, but labor disputes later turn on whether the employer acted fairly and on a reasonably investigated basis. Article 19 of the Labour Act also matters here: when termination is based on conduct or performance, the employer ordinarily must provide the employee an opportunity to defend himself or herself before dismissal, except in the narrow field of immediate termination rights preserved by Article 25/II. As a result, even where the allegation is serious, HR should think carefully about procedural fairness before imposing a final sanction. (natlex.ilo.org)
An effective investigation should also distinguish types of misconduct. Not every inappropriate remark will justify summary dismissal, and not every case should be minimized as a communication problem. The legal question is whether the facts support a sanction proportionate to the conduct. Article 25 expressly permits summary termination where the employee sexually harasses another employee. In other cases, depending on the facts, the response may involve a written warning, mandatory training, role restrictions, managerial supervision, or another corrective measure. But when the facts do support sexual harassment, excessive hesitation can itself create liability under Article 417 and Article 24. (natlex.ilo.org)
Confidentiality does not mean secrecy without limits
Confidentiality is one of the most misunderstood parts of workplace investigations. HR should protect the dignity of all involved persons, limit dissemination, and avoid unnecessary exposure of sensitive allegations. But confidentiality does not mean the employer may do nothing, conceal the matter from decision-makers who must act, or over-promise that names and records will never be disclosed under any circumstances. The proper legal standard is controlled processing of investigation data for a legitimate and necessary purpose. Under the Personal Data Protection Law, personal data must be processed lawfully and fairly, for specified, explicit, and legitimate purposes, in a way that is relevant, limited, and proportionate, and stored only for the period required by law or by the processing purpose. (KVKK)
This is particularly important because harassment files often contain special categories of personal data. Article 6 of Law No. 6698 treats data concerning sexual life, health, trade-union membership, criminal convictions, biometric data, and other listed matters as special categories. The same article now permits processing in certain cases, including when explicitly provided by law, when necessary for the establishment, exercise, or protection of a right, and when necessary for fulfilling legal obligations in employment and occupational health and safety. For HR, the implication is clear: the employer may process sensitive investigation data where there is a valid legal basis, but it must do so carefully and only to the extent necessary. A workplace investigation is not a license to collect every intimate detail that may surface in conversation. (KVKK)
The duty to inform still matters. Article 10 requires the data controller to inform data subjects about the identity of the controller, the purpose of processing, transfer recipients, and the legal basis and method of collection when personal data are obtained. The related Communiqué adds that this notice must be intelligible, clear, and plain, and that the legal basis must be explicitly stated. It also makes clear that informing and obtaining explicit consent are separate processes. In HR investigations, this means employers should not rely on vague handbook language alone. The organization should have a defensible notice structure for employee data, compliance investigations, hotline reports, and internal disciplinary records. (KVKK)
Data security obligations are equally central. Article 12 requires the controller to take necessary technical and organizational measures to ensure an appropriate level of security. Article 419 of the Turkish Code of Obligations separately states that the employer may use employee personal data only to the extent necessary for the employee’s suitability for work or for performance of the service contract, subject to special laws. Together, these rules mean investigation files should be access-restricted, role-based, and securely stored. HR should avoid loose email circulation, open shared folders, or unnecessary forwarding of allegations to managers who have no investigative role. (KVKK)
Retention also matters. The by-law on erasure, destruction, or anonymization states that personal data must be erased, destroyed, or anonymized when the legal grounds for processing no longer exist. Where data controllers are subject to the relevant requirements, they must also maintain disposal policies and record disposal operations. In practice, harassment files should not be kept forever by habit. They should be retained according to a defensible policy that takes account of litigation risk, statutory obligations, and the continuing necessity of processing. (KVKK)
For multinational employers, cross-border investigations require an additional check. The current transfer regime allows personal data to be transferred abroad only if one of the legal processing grounds exists and either an adequacy decision or appropriate safeguards are in place; the implementing by-law now details those mechanisms. This means a Turkish employer that automatically uploads witness statements, chat records, or investigation summaries to a foreign parent company or global HR platform without validating the transfer basis may create a separate compliance problem on top of the original misconduct case. (KVKK)
Retaliation, follow-up, and workplace repair
An HR investigation is not over when the finding is issued. Law No. 6701 expressly treats unfavorable treatment of persons who launch or participate in proceedings to secure equal treatment as discrimination. That principle should be applied functionally in the workplace. After a complaint, HR should monitor whether the complainant, witnesses, or even the accused are subjected to retaliatory scheduling, project exclusion, humiliating gossip, or reputational punishment inconsistent with the investigation outcome. A formal finding followed by informal retaliation is still a compliance failure.
Follow-up also includes training and systems repair. The Occupational Health and Safety Law requires information, training, and worker consultation. In a harassment context, that supports a broader HR duty to update training, clarify reporting routes, educate supervisors, and reassess whether the organization’s culture or management structure allowed the misconduct to flourish. A single disciplinary decision may solve the immediate case while leaving the underlying risk untouched. Turkish law’s structure points in the opposite direction: employers are expected to organize, inform, consult, and prevent.
Remedies and dispute pathways
From the employee’s perspective, multiple legal routes may exist. Depending on the facts, the employee may terminate the contract for just cause under Article 24, pursue employment-related compensation claims, seek protection of personality rights under the Turkish Code of Obligations, bring discrimination-related complaints under Law No. 6701, and file a criminal complaint under Article 105 of the Penal Code. If the dispute becomes a labor-court matter, Turkish justice materials confirm that mediation is mandatory before filing suit in labor disputes. For employers, that means the investigation file may later be tested not only in court, but first in a mediation setting where chronology, proportionality, and documentation become central. (natlex.ilo.org)
Conclusion
In Turkey, sexual harassment and workplace misconduct cannot be managed as a purely internal HR sensitivity issue. The employer’s duty is anchored in Article 417 of the Turkish Code of Obligations, strengthened by the immediate termination rules in Articles 24 and 25 of the Labour Act, supported by the organizational duties of the Occupational Health and Safety Law, expanded by anti-discrimination norms under Law No. 6701, shaped by data-protection obligations under Law No. 6698, and in serious cases overlapped by the criminal offence of sexual harassment under Article 105 of the Penal Code.
For HR, the practical rule is simple but demanding: receive the complaint seriously, protect the complainant without retaliation, investigate promptly and fairly, preserve confidentiality within lawful limits, process data proportionately, document each step, decide sanctions consistently, and then repair the system that allowed the problem to arise. That is what employer compliance looks like in this field. In Turkish law, a workplace investigation is not only about finding facts. It is about proving that the employer fulfilled its legal duty to protect dignity at work.
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