Sexual harassment in Labour Law

According to labour law, an employee or employer who is subjected to sexual harassment can annul his/her labour contract justifiably and claim for material damages and damages for mental anguish because of violation of his/her personal rights. Accordingly, sexual harassment is considered as the violation of personal rights, and it grounds on the feature of labour contract which provides personnel dependence. Employers and employees are obliged to respect to the personal rights of one another within the frame of requirements of protecting and observing and the requirement of loyalty which are contractual requirements of labour contract. Therefore, the person who is subjected to sexual harassment can open cases before the court of law within the Civil Law for the protection of his/her rights apart from annulling the labour contract due to the violation of his/her Constitutional rights. Similarly, the sexual harassment is crime in accordance with the Turkish Penal Code. Thus, the place of sexual harassment in the labour law is clearly different from that in Turkish Penal Code. Because this issue is more comprehensive in labour law. Some sex-including which are not considered as crime by the Turkish Penal Code are considered as sexual harassment in the labour law. So, the employees who are subjected to sexual harassment especially in their workplaces are granted the right to open a case for discrimination according to the labour law also benefits from the easiness of proving which is resulted from discrimination. On the contrary sexual harassment is considered as the violation of personal rights as well sexual based discrimination in International Law and Comparative Law. The most difficult part in solving the sexual harassment is difficulty in proving. Sexual harassment which leaves no evidence to prove it apart from the statement of the person who is subjected to the sexual harassment, can be proved by means of some presumptions of fact. The fact that sexual harassment is considered as the violation of personnel rights makes an insufficient way of protection. Therefore, sexual harassment should be considered a sexual based discrimination in our and its definition, its legal base and legal boundary should be determined for better protection.