SYDNEY, Australia — A long-awaited national survey on sexual assault and harassment at Australian universities — the first of its kind in the country — has revealed that young women are experiencing what victims’ advocates describe as “shocking levels” of sexual violence on campuses across this country, prompting a range of new measures by officials to tackle the problem.

The report, released on Tuesday by the government’s Human Rights Commission, shows that 51 percent of all university students were sexually harassed at least once in 2016. It also shows that more than 2,000 students, or 6.9 percent of those surveyed, were sexually assaulted at least once in 2015 or 2016 and that in the vast majority of cases, neither the victim nor bystanders reported the episode.

“We are sorry that this happened to you. Sexual assault is a crime,” said Margaret Gardner, the chairwoman of Universities Australia, an association of the country’s universities, which helped finance the survey. “Through your stories you call on us and on every fellow student and member of staff to do more to prevent others from ever experiencing the damage,” she said.

“We cannot take away the pain that you have felt and that you feel,” she added. “But we acknowledge it and we can respond to that pain with compassion and care.”