MELBOURNE, Australia — Australia’s prime minister said on Wednesday that he will issue a formal apology to thousands of survivors of child sexual abuse that went on for decades at schools, religious organizations and other institutions.

The government of Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull said it had accepted most of the recommendations of a 2017 report by the Royal Commission, the country’s highest investigative body, including compensating victims and establishing a national office for child safety.

Government investigators found 4,444 victims of abuse and at least 1,880 suspected abusers between 1980 and 2015, most of them Catholic priests and religious brothers. The 2017 report said that 62 percent of the survivors who had been abused in a religious institution said it had happened in a Catholic institution.

“Now that we’ve uncovered the shocking truth, we must do everything in our power to honor the bravery of the thousands of people who came forward,” Mr. Turnbull said at a news conference in Canberra, the capital, on Wednesday.