When the earthquakes struck Turkey and Syria in February 2023, killing more than 50,000 people, Efe Demir was working at a bank in İstanbul. One month later, the 30-something employee took his own life. Before his death, he had sent an email to colleagues questioning his employer's actions, saying he felt the organization prioritized profit over caring for clients who had lost everything in the disaster. The bank strongly denied the allegations. But Demir's final message would become a flashpoint in an uncomfortable conversation that workplaces around the world are now beginning to have: what happens when the job demands something your conscience cannot give?
Psychiatrist Christophe Dejours, who has spent decades studying the intersection of work and mental health, argues that modern labor forces employees to constantly navigate moral dilemmas, exhausting emotional and cognitive energy just to get through the day. The resulting harm—what researchers increasingly call "moral injury" or "ethical suffering"—arises when workers feel compelled to act solely in the interest of profit, even when doing so violates their sense of right and wrong. "It doesn't arise only from what workers are required to do," Dejours explains. "It can also take the form of intense feelings of isolation when an employee feels what a company is doing is wrong, but nobody is doing anything about it."
For Demir, the earthquake was not merely a national tragedy. It was a moment when his employer's values were put to the test—and he believed they had failed. Among his accusations was that the bank had done little to help customers struggling to repay loans after the disaster. Such cases rarely become public. Employers move quickly to protect their reputation, while colleagues fear retaliation and families hesitate to draw explicit connections. Yet research suggests that workplace suicide can sometimes serve as a final, desperate attempt to expose injustice.
The good news is that the walls of silence are beginning to crack. In France, unions like CFE-CGC actively combat workplace bullying and psychosocial hazards. Globally, the International Trade Union Confederation has named work-related suicide a priority concern. Long-running taboos in countries like Japan and France have already placed this issue into public debate, creating pressure for change.
Experts say the path forward requires expanding the definition of workplace safety beyond physical risks to include moral and psychological hazards. It means acknowledging that professional dignity is not only about hours and wages, but also about what we produce at work—and whether we can look at ourselves in the mirror at the end of the day. Organizations facing overlapping crises—environmental, geopolitical, natural—will need to take the ethical integrity of their employees seriously, before more people are pushed to the edge.