Canberra, Aug 23 (IANS): More than 1.7 million Australians were sexually harassed in 2021-22, a national survey has found.

The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) on Wednesday published the results of the 2021-22 Personal Safety Survey, revealing an estimated 1.7 million people -- 8.7 per cent of the population -- experienced sexual harassment in the survey period from March 2021 to May 2022.

Of those victims, 1.3 million were women and 426,800 men, Xinhua news agency reported.

According to the ABS data, men were responsible for 97 per cent of all sexual harassment incidents against women, with inappropriate comments about a person's body or sex life as the most common form of harassment.

The PSS survey, the first conducted by the ABS since 2016, found 7 million Australians - more than one-third of the adult population - have experienced physical violence since turning 15.

Men were more likely to experience physical violence but only 42 per cent knew the perpetrator, compared to 87 per cent of women.

"We found that an estimated 4 million men and 3 million women have experienced physical violence since the age of 15," Will Milne, Head of Crime and Justice statistics at the ABS, said in a media release.

Both men and women were three times more likely to experience physical violence by a male perpetrator than by a female perpetrator, it said.

"In the 12 months after the assault, nearly two-thirds of women and just over a quarter of men experienced anxiety or fear for their personal safety."

The survey found that an estimated 2.2 million Australian women have experienced sexual violence -- defined as any incident involving the occurrence, attempt, or threat of sexual assault -- since the age of 15.

Women were three times more likely to experience sexual violence by a man they knew than a stranger.