Shila, a survivor of sexual enslavement, poses for a portrait at the Daughters of Charity skills training center in the town of Mekelle in the Tigray region of northern Ethiopia. (Arlette Bashizi for The Washington Post)

MEKELLE, Ethiopia — Shila survived three months of sexual enslavement during Ethiopia’s civil war and then the birth of a son fathered by an attacker. She told no one, maintaining that her youngest child was the result of a clandestine visit by her husband, a Tigrayan militiaman.

Then, after three long years, her husband finally returned, Shila recalled. She’d thought he was dead. When he took off his hat and she saw his silhouette in the darkness, she collapsed.