The number of sexual assaults recorded by police rose by 11 per cent in 2023, figures released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics on Thursday show.

This marked the 12th-straight annual rise in sexual assaults and the highest level the ABS has registered in more than 30 years of records.

In total, there were 36,318 victim-survivors of sexual assaults recorded by police across the country in 2023.

Head of crime and justice statistics at the ABS, Samantha McNally, said records of assault increased across almost all states and territories.

“Accounting for population growth, the rate of recorded sexual assault victim-survivors has gone up from 126 per 100,000 people last year, to 136 victim-survivors per 100,000 people,” she said.

“This is the highest rate of sexual assault victim-survivors recorded in our 31-year dataset.”

NSW and Queensland recorded the largest spike in assaults with a 19 per cent and 14 per cent rise respectively.

Our Watch chief executive Patty Kinnersly said women were reluctant to report incidents because of fear of not being believed, or being blamed.

“More than 30,000 women reported sexual assaults to police in 2023,” Ms Kinnersly said.

“This number is shocking but sadly represents just the tip of the iceberg as less than one in 10 women report their experience of sexual violence to police.”

The vast majority of sexual assault victim-survivors were female, who accounted for 84 per cent of those impacted, and they were most commonly aged between 10 and 17.

More than two in three of sexual assaults took place in a residential location and 69 per cent of them were reported to police within a year.

Family and domestic violence-related sexual assaults made up almost two in five, or 14,059, of all sexual assaults reported to police.

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