Learn how workplace harassment and mobbing are regulated in Turkey, including employer duties, employee rights, discrimination rules, just-cause termination, damages, mediation, and compliance risks under Turkish labor law.
Workplace Harassment and Mobbing in Turkey
Workplace harassment and mobbing in Turkey are not regulated through a single, self-contained “mobbing code.” Instead, Turkish law protects employees through a combination of labor law, the law of obligations, occupational health and safety rules, equality law, mediation procedure, and administrative guidance. The core legal framework includes Labor Law No. 4857, Turkish Code of Obligations No. 6098, Occupational Health and Safety Law No. 6331, Labor Courts Law No. 7036, the equality framework under Law No. 6701, and the administrative anti-mobbing circular framework that was updated in 2025.
This matters because mobbing in Turkish working life is treated as more than a personality conflict. Official Ministry materials describe workplace psychological harassment as conduct that harms an employee’s dignity and honor, reduces productivity, damages health, and negatively affects working life. The 2011/2 anti-mobbing circular, reproduced in a Ministry guide, described mobbing as intentional and systematic humiliation, belittling, exclusion, degradation of personality and reputation, and mistreatment over a period of time; the Ministry’s 2025 reporting then confirmed that this framework was updated through the 2025/3 Presidential Circular, which entered into force on 6 March 2025 after publication in the Official Gazette.
For employees, the practical question is not only whether mobbing is “real” in a social sense, but what legal routes exist when a hostile pattern of conduct begins to affect health, dignity, wages, or job continuity. For employers, the key question is different: what preventive, investigative, and remedial steps are legally expected, and what liabilities arise if the workplace tolerates or produces a hostile environment. Turkish law answers those questions through overlapping duties rather than through one narrow statute.
This article explains Workplace Harassment and Mobbing in Turkey: Employee Protections and Employer Liability in a practical, SEO-friendly format. It covers the legal meaning of mobbing, the role of the 2025/3 Presidential Circular, the employer’s duty to protect the employee’s personality, the interaction with equality and discrimination law, just-cause resignation rights, damages, mediation, and the main compliance risks for employers in both private-sector and public-sector workplaces.
1. What is workplace harassment or mobbing in Turkey?
In official Turkish administrative guidance, mobbing is described as intentional and systematic conduct carried out over a period of time that humiliates, belittles, excludes, degrades a worker’s personality and reputation, subjects the worker to mistreatment, and ultimately harms health and working life. The Ministry’s anti-mobbing guide reproducing the old circular framework uses precisely that language, and the Ministry’s 2025 monitoring report explains that the updated 2025/3 Presidential Circular again emphasized the importance of preventing psychological harassment that appears through persistent humiliation, exclusion, degrading treatment, intimidation, and similar conduct in the workplace.
That definition is important because Turkish law does not reduce mobbing to a single insult or a single management decision. The official descriptions focus on a pattern of intentional, systematic conduct that pushes the employee toward isolation, exhaustion, or loss of dignity. In practice, this is why repeated exclusion, persistent verbal degradation, deliberate overburdening, reputational attacks, social isolation, and humiliating workplace treatment are discussed together under the mobbing heading rather than as isolated HR incidents.
At the same time, not every unpleasant workplace event automatically becomes a legally recognized mobbing case. Turkish law still requires legal analysis of the conduct, its duration, the employer’s role, the protected rights affected, and the remedy sought. Some claims are better framed as discrimination, some as just-cause resignation situations, some as damages claims for violation of personality rights, and some as occupational safety and health failures involving psychosocial risk.
2. The 2025/3 Presidential Circular and the current administrative framework
A major current-development point is that the earlier 2011/2 Prime Ministry Circular on preventing workplace mobbing was updated. The Ministry’s 2025 monitoring report states that, following technical work and inter-institutional consultation, the Workplace Psychological Harassment (Mobbing) Prevention Presidential Circular was approved and published in the Official Gazette dated 6 March 2025, numbered 32833, and entered into force as Circular No. 2025/3.
The same official report explains what changed in practical terms. According to the Ministry, the 2025/3 Circular emphasized healthy, safe, and peaceful workplaces; listed measures to protect employees from psychological harassment; provided more detailed information on administrative complaint mechanisms; reconstituted and expanded the Psychological Harassment Combat Board; broadened the institutions represented in that structure; emphasized the importance of confidentiality in mobbing complaints; and expanded the scope of employer responsibility, including the importance of workplace risk assessment and preventive and protective measures.
That update matters because it shows current Turkish policy does not treat mobbing as an outdated or merely symbolic issue. The Ministry’s own 2025 publications further state that the 2025/3 Circular requires public and private institutions to fulfill their responsibilities carefully and that mobbing should be treated as a serious psychosocial occupational health and safety problem, not merely as a communication issue.
3. Labor Law protections against harassment and mobbing
Labor Law No. 4857 contains several provisions that are directly relevant to workplace harassment and mobbing, even though the statute does not use “mobbing” as a standalone article title. First, Article 5 establishes the equal-treatment principle and prohibits discrimination in the employment relationship on grounds such as language, race, color, sex, disability, political opinion, philosophical belief, religion, sect, and similar reasons. The same article prohibits different treatment in the formation, implementation, and termination of the employment contract on grounds such as sex or pregnancy unless biological reasons or the nature of the work require it. It also allows the employee to claim up to four months’ wages as compensation, in addition to deprived rights, where the equal-treatment rule is violated.
This is significant because not every mobbing case is merely a general dignity case. Some workplace-harassment patterns are intertwined with discrimination based on protected characteristics. Where that happens, Article 5 becomes especially important because the worker may have a specific equality-based claim in addition to other remedies. Turkish law therefore allows a mobbing file to take on a stronger legal character if the conduct is linked to discriminatory treatment rather than being framed only as generalized hostility.
Second, Article 24 gives the employee the right to terminate the employment contract immediately for just cause in certain situations. That provision is highly relevant to severe harassment cases. The article allows immediate termination where the employer insults the honor or dignity of the worker or a family member, behaves in that manner, sexually harasses the worker, threatens the worker, commits a crime requiring imprisonment against the worker or a family member, makes false and degrading accusations affecting honor and dignity, or where the worker is sexually harassed by another employee or a third person and the employer, after being informed, fails to take necessary measures. Article 24 also covers failure to apply working conditions properly and failure to calculate or pay wages in accordance with law or contract.
This means Turkish labor law gives employees more than a passive right to complain. In serious harassment situations, the employee may in some cases leave the job immediately without waiting for an ordinary notice period, provided the facts fit Article 24’s just-cause framework. That is one of the strongest legal consequences of tolerated or employer-driven harassment in Turkey.
4. The employer’s duty to protect personality under the Turkish Code of Obligations
One of the most important legal foundations for mobbing liability in Turkey is Article 417 of the Turkish Code of Obligations No. 6098. According to the official legal text as reflected in Adalet/UYAP materials, Article 417 provides that the employer must protect and respect the worker’s personality in the service relationship and ensure an order in the workplace consistent with principles of good faith, and specifically must take the necessary measures to prevent workers from being subjected to psychological and sexual harassment and to prevent those who have been harassed from suffering further harm.
This provision is central because it frames anti-mobbing responsibility not only as a managerial preference but as a legal duty flowing from the contract relationship itself. In other words, Turkish law does not say merely that the employer should be nice or should promote civility. It says the employer must actively protect the worker’s personality and take measures against psychological and sexual harassment. That is why damages claims in mobbing files are often discussed through Article 417 and general contractual liability principles.
The same official and quasi-official legal sources also underline that Article 417 is one reason Turkish law already contains a significant protective foundation against mobbing even though the system does not rely on one separate “mobbing statute.” In practical terms, it allows employees to argue that the employer breached a concrete statutory duty of protection by tolerating, creating, or failing to stop a hostile workplace environment.
5. Occupational health and safety: mobbing as a psychosocial risk
Mobbing is also relevant under Occupational Health and Safety Law No. 6331. Article 4 states that the employer is obliged to ensure employees’ work-related health and safety and, within that framework, to take all necessary preventive measures, including preventing occupational risks, providing information and training, monitoring compliance, and carrying out risk assessment.
Although Law No. 6331 does not create a separate article titled “mobbing,” the Ministry’s current mobbing guidance goes further and explicitly states that mobbing should be treated as a serious psychosocial occupational health and safety risk, not merely as a communication problem, because it affects the worker’s mental and social well-being. The Ministry’s 2025 reporting also says the updated 2025/3 Circular broadened employer responsibility by emphasizing workplace risk assessment and preventive/protective measures in the anti-mobbing field.
This is practically important for employers. Once mobbing is treated as part of psychosocial risk management, the issue is no longer limited to internal HR handling. It becomes connected to risk assessment, workplace prevention policies, training, managerial supervision, and corrective action. For employees, this broadens the legal frame: workplace harassment is not only a dignity issue and not only a damages issue; it may also reflect a failure of the employer’s OHS system.
6. Equality law and the narrower TİHEK definition of “iş yerinde yıldırma”
A particularly important legal distinction must be made here. Under Law No. 6701 and the practice of the Turkish Human Rights and Equality Institution (TİHEK), “iş yerinde yıldırma” is defined more narrowly than the broader labor-law and obligations-law understanding of mobbing. In a 2026 TİHEK decision reproducing the statutory definition, the Institution stated that workplace intimidation/mobbing under Article 2 of Law No. 6701 means intentional acts performed on the basis of one of the discrimination grounds listed in the law, with the aim of making a person dislike the job, excluding them, or driving them to exhaustion. The same decision also explains that TİHEK examines such applications only within the discrimination grounds listed in Article 3.
This distinction matters enormously in practice. A worker may have a genuine mobbing complaint under broader labor-law and contractual-protection principles even if the conduct is not tied to a protected discrimination ground. But if the worker goes specifically to TİHEK under Law No. 6701, the Institution’s own published reasoning shows that the matter must fit the narrower discrimination-based statutory definition to fall within that mechanism.
So, legally speaking, Turkey has at least two overlapping but non-identical ways of thinking about mobbing: a broader employment-law / obligations-law framework centered on dignity, protection, and employer duties; and a narrower equality-law framework in which workplace mobbing is tied to listed discrimination grounds. Employees and advisors should be careful not to confuse those routes.
7. Employer liability in harassment and mobbing cases
Employer liability in Turkey can arise in several ways. First, the employer may be directly responsible if managers or employer representatives commit the harassment themselves. Second, the employer may be liable for failing to prevent harassment carried out by supervisors, coworkers, or even third parties interacting with the workplace. Third, the employer may be liable for failing to act after being informed, which is especially visible in Article 24’s specific rule on workplace sexual harassment by another worker or third person when the employer does not take necessary measures after notification.
Article 417 of the Code of Obligations reinforces this by requiring the employer not only to refrain from harmful conduct but to take necessary measures so workers are not exposed to psychological or sexual harassment and so already-harassed workers do not suffer further damage. The 2025/3 anti-mobbing framework, as summarized by the Ministry, likewise emphasizes broadened employer responsibility, confidentiality, preventive/protective measures, and risk-assessment logic.
In practical terms, this means employer liability is not limited to spectacular misconduct. It can also arise from passivity, trivialization, ineffective internal handling, absence of preventive policy, failure to investigate, or failure to separate the worker from ongoing harm. In Turkish law, “we did not create the problem personally” is not a complete defense if the law imposed a duty to prevent or stop the harm.
8. Employee remedies: resignation, compensation, and court claims
One of the first remedies is just-cause resignation under Article 24, as discussed above. Where the facts fit the statutory grounds—such as insults affecting honor and dignity, sexual harassment, threats, false degrading accusations, failure to take measures after workplace sexual harassment by others, or failure to apply working conditions properly—the employee may terminate immediately without waiting for a normal notice period.
Another route is discrimination compensation under Article 5 where the harassment is connected to prohibited discriminatory treatment. That article allows the employee to claim up to four months’ wages as compensation, in addition to deprived rights, when the equal-treatment rule is violated. Article 5 also includes a burden-shifting structure: once the employee strongly indicates the likelihood of a violation, the employer must prove that no such violation existed.
A further remedy is material and moral damages. The Ministry/ILO mobbing guide published in 2025 states plainly that a worker who is subjected to mobbing may seek material and moral compensation, and it places that statement alongside the worker’s right to just-cause termination. Read together with Article 417’s duty of protection, this shows that Turkish law does not treat mobbing only as a workplace-management issue; it can also produce compensable harm.
Depending on the facts, there may also be a criminal-law dimension. The same Ministry/ILO guide states that mobbing may, depending on the conduct, amount to unlawful acts falling under Turkish Criminal Code provisions concerning conduct such as torment and insult. That does not mean every mobbing case automatically becomes a criminal case, but it does mean some workplace-harassment patterns go beyond civil or labor liability alone.
9. Administrative and institutional complaint paths
The Ministry’s current official materials make clear that anti-mobbing policy in Turkey includes administrative complaint mechanisms. The Ministry’s 2025 monitoring report states that the 2025/3 Circular provided detailed information on administrative application mechanisms and reconstituted the Psychological Harassment Combat Board while expanding its structure and participating institutions.
For discrimination-based complaints, TİHEK may be relevant, but with the important limitation already noted: the Institution’s published decisions show that its statutory “workplace mobbing” review is linked to listed discrimination grounds under Law No. 6701. So employees should not assume every mobbing complaint automatically fits that channel. It is a useful route in the right case, but it is not the only route and not the broadest one.
Public-sector and private-sector workers should therefore think strategically about the path chosen. Some cases are best pursued internally first, some through labor-law compensation and resignation routes, some through equality-law complaints, and some through criminal or disciplinary channels if the conduct is severe enough. Turkish law offers multiple mechanisms, but the right mechanism depends on the legal character of the conduct.
10. Mediation and litigation procedure
When harassment or mobbing leads to labor receivables, compensation claims, or reinstatement claims, mandatory mediation usually becomes part of the route to court. Article 3 of Labor Courts Law No. 7036 states that in lawsuits concerning employee or employer receivables and compensation based on law or individual or collective employment contracts, and in reinstatement claims, prior application to a mediator is a condition of action. The same article provides that if no mediation application was made, the case is dismissed procedurally, while claims arising from work accidents and occupational diseases are excluded from this mandatory mediation rule.
This is highly relevant in mobbing files because many real disputes turn into claims for wages, notice pay, severance pay, discrimination compensation, damages, or reinstatement after retaliatory dismissal. In such cases, the employee cannot safely jump straight to court without checking whether the dispute falls into the mediation-first category. Procedure matters just as much as the merits.
If the employer dismisses the employee after complaints or uses the complaint as a pretext for dismissal, ordinary job-security rules may also become important. Turkish labor law’s reinstatement regime under Articles 18 to 21 still applies where the employee meets the statutory scope requirements, and Article 5’s anti-discrimination rule may strengthen the employee’s position if the treatment was tied to a protected ground.
11. Practical compliance steps for employers
For employers, the legal lesson is that anti-mobbing compliance must be active, not passive. The 2025/3 framework described by the Ministry emphasizes broadened employer responsibility, confidentiality, risk assessment, preventive and protective measures, and institutionalized complaint handling. When that is read together with Article 417 of the Code of Obligations and Article 4 of the OHS Law, the compliance expectation becomes clear: employers should adopt internal anti-harassment policies, create reporting channels, investigate promptly, protect confidentiality, document interventions, and take corrective measures before the damage deepens.
Employers should also be careful not to treat every mobbing complaint as a generic interpersonal conflict. The law is concerned with dignity, personality protection, equality, safety, and contractual good faith. A workplace that trivializes systematic humiliation or exclusion may later face claims framed simultaneously as Article 417 breaches, Article 24 just-cause resignation, Article 5 discrimination, and OHS failures.
A further risk is retaliation. If the employee complains and then faces sudden disciplinary pressure, forced isolation, or dismissal, the employer may not only face the original harassment issue but also a second-layer dispute over invalid dismissal, discrimination, or bad-faith conduct. The safest employer position is therefore always to build a process that is preventive, neutral, documented, and protective rather than reactive and defensive.
12. Practical guidance for employees
For employees, the most important legal point is that Turkish law does not force the worker to endure a seriously degrading workplace in silence. Depending on the facts, the worker may invoke equality protections, just-cause termination rights, damages theories, administrative complaint channels, and—if separately warranted by the conduct—criminal-law routes. The Ministry’s current mobbing materials also expressly state that a victimized worker may justifiably terminate the employment contract and seek material and moral damages.
At the same time, employees should understand the distinction between the broader labor-law concept of mobbing and the narrower discrimination-based definition used by TİHEK under Law No. 6701. Choosing the right legal route matters. A worker may have a strong court-based labor-law case even where a TİHEK application is not the best or broadest fit because the conduct cannot be tied to one of the listed discrimination grounds.
Employees should also act with procedural care. If the dispute turns into receivables, compensation, or reinstatement, mandatory mediation rules may apply first. If the worker resigns for just cause, the legal basis should be framed carefully. If the matter involves discrimination, the facts connecting the conduct to the protected ground should be articulated clearly. In Turkish labor practice, hostile-workplace claims are often decided not only by the seriousness of the conduct, but by the legal route chosen.
Conclusion
Workplace harassment and mobbing in Turkey are regulated through an interlocking system rather than a single code. Labor Law No. 4857 protects equality and gives employees just-cause exit rights in serious harassment situations. The Turkish Code of Obligations imposes a direct duty on employers to protect the worker’s personality and prevent psychological and sexual harassment. Occupational health and safety law frames mobbing as part of a broader duty to protect work-related health and safety, and the updated 2025/3 Presidential Circular confirms that Turkey continues to strengthen its administrative anti-mobbing framework through prevention, confidentiality, risk assessment, and institutional coordination.
For employees, the system offers meaningful protections: just-cause resignation, discrimination compensation in the right cases, damages claims, mediation and court routes, and in some files even criminal and administrative complaint paths. For employers, the message is equally clear: mobbing is not simply a cultural or managerial problem. In current Turkish law, it is a legal risk touching dignity, equality, safety, contract performance, and liability. The employers best protected against that risk are the ones that treat prevention, investigation, and response as a real compliance duty from the beginning.
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