Three years after the Taliban's return to power, a new law has been passed saying that women must cover their face and body completely if they leave the house and their voices cannot be heard in public. Despite the risk to themselves, some women have spoken out and have been telling the BBC's Yugita Limei what life is like for them now. We have hidden their identities and used actors' voices to protect them. It's increasingly difficult for foreign journalists to report from Afghanistan. This is Yugita's report, compiled along with camera journalist Sanjay Ganguli and producer Imogen Anderson.

Every moment you feel like you're in a prison, even breathing becomes difficult.

We're like dead bodies moving around. We can't talk. We can't do anything.

This is a country where women are increasingly being pushed out of view. Their freedoms crushed bit by bit by a relentless series of diktats. The latest, a published law. This section says that if a woman must leave her home out of necessity, she's obliged to cover her face and body and her voice must not be heard. We've had to be very careful and discrete when talking to women here because they're already operating in an environment of brutal restrictions. And now the Taliban's morality police have been given sweeping powers. It's It's only been a few weeks since the law was announced, so it's unclear how stringently it'll be implemented. But already there's a ripple effect of fear that you feel when speaking to people here. We meet teenage girls who've already lost three crucial years of education. Their voices might need to be hidden, but they want their words to be heard.

If we go out, we're scared. If we take a bus or remove our masks, we're scared. If we speak louder, we're scared. There's so much fear and stress. If we can't speak, then why go out at all? Why even live?

Until last year, groups of women took to the streets demanding their rights, risking violence and detention. The Taliban cracked down on the marches until they stopped altogether. This woman broke down, telling us how she was detained last year while participating in protests.

The Taliban beat me and dragged me into a vehicle saying, Why are you acting against us? This is an Islamic system. They took me to a dark, frightening place and insulted me with terrible words. We were treated like animals. After being released from detention, we weren't the same people we were before.

Now, this is how Afghan women are showing dissent, posting videos of themselves online, singing songs, criticizing the Taliban's actions. We met Hamdula Fitrat from the Taliban government. He didn't want to be seen with a woman or sit directly opposite me, but he answered my questions. We asked how he could justify the law.

The laws that have that have been introduced have been approved by the Supreme Leader in accordance with Islamic Sharia. Any religious scholar can check their references.

Most of the girls and women we've spoken to in your country say they are prepared to wear whatever it is that your government prescribes as long as you allow them to study. And because they're not being allowed to do that, they're being driven to the point of depression, even suicidal thoughts. Isn't it your responsibility as a government to listen to those voices and act on Absolutely.

Our sister's education is an important issue. We are trying to resolve this, which is the demand of a lot of our sisters. We have mentioned it several times in the past, too, that our leadership is working on it. A solution will be found.

It's been three years now since girls were locked out of schools, but it hasn't happened on the ground. Do you really expect people to believe that you are committed to actually doing it?

We are awaiting the decision of our leadership.

In a province not far from Kabul, we found some evidence that at least a section of the Taliban differs with the Supreme Leader. We were given rare access to a midwife training course run by the Taliban government. All the students are in their 20s. Here, they're being taught how to nurse a woman in labor. It's a rare exception. But behind closed doors, some Afghan women are taking matters into their own hands. We meet a teacher who runs a secret school for girls.

When the new law came, I explained its rules to my students and told them things would become even more difficult. Every day, I wake up asking God to make the day pass safely. Several times, I've had to change the location of the school.

It's a quiet act of defiance and hope.

I'm now in Delhi after more than two weeks of being in Afghanistan. And one of the other ramifications of the new law is on relations between the Taliban and the international community, which has become increasingly difficult and unpredictable. It had seemed quite different just about two months ago. At the end of June, for the first time ever that the Taliban went to attend UN-led talks in Doha. It was as a breakthrough at that time. It was a meeting that Afghan women rights activists and civil society activists had been kept out of. The UN had come under fire for that, but people within it obviously had thought it was worth the risk. But now they're questioning whether there was any point in conceding to the Taliban's request for that meeting and whether there's any point in engaging with the Taliban in the future.