“The fact that every single person I knew in my life had witnessed me being publicly degraded – to have your worst insecurities aired out in front of everyone, it feels so humiliating,” says Athika Ahmed. In January 2026, Athika's “worst nightmare” became reality when a BBC interview about women’s health was hijacked by far-right accounts and turned into a global hate campaign against the young Welsh advocate.
24-year-old Athika, from Cardiff, has been involved in local health advocacy work since she was sixteen – a direct response to her own lived experiences of the healthcare system growing up with polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) and caring for her grandfather.
“I started to realise that when you're in these underserved communities, it's so hard to get access to the right level of care that you need,” she says.
Her advocacy work with Love Your Period, a Welsh youth activist group calling for free period products and open conversations around young women’s health, saw Athika – alongside other ambassadors – invited by Welsh Government health officials to help shape new school resources on menstrual health, sexual wellbeing and conditions such as PCOS and endometriosis.
At the time, Athika gave a powerful interview to the BBC about the importance of this work. A month later, an American satire page on the platform X discovered it. The account doctored the interview byline, listing Athika as a Youth Advocate, and instead gave her the title ‘New Wales Health Minister’, before sharing the video with their followers. Explaining how the altered video purposefully misrepresented her, Athika said, “They changed the title. They wanted to instigate something, a fire that wasn't even there.”
The video quickly took on a life of its own – racking up millions of views and being shared by thousands of accounts from across the globe on X, YouTube and Facebook. Many of the posts directed at Athika were loaded with misogyny, racism and Islamophobia, along with degrading and hurtful comments about her body and the way she looked.
The same characters who rally ‘protect our women’ were now fuelling a global wave of misogynistic and racist abuse towards a young woman working to support girls’ health.
Recalling some of the posts, Athika said, “They cropped out my face. They're making AI-generated clips of me at the gym, me eating thousands of burgers, me at Gregg's, and I've got pasties in my hands, and I've bombed the building behind me.”
The use of AI-generated images added another layer of cruelty – turning harassment into visual mockery and showing how new technologies are increasingly being weaponised in online hate campaigns.
It was Molly, Athika’s best friend and Founder of the ‘Love Your Period’ campaign, who first made her aware of the horrific storm that was unfolding online, “I’m really grateful that she called me. She said, ‘Don’t go on anything, switch your phone off, let us deal with it,’” Athika explained, “But sometimes we’re our own worst enemy, and eventually I had to look because I wanted to see what she was talking about.”
Less than 24 hours after the doctored video had been shared, Athika was receiving dozens of messages from family members and friends who had seen the hate spreading across the internet. As the panic and fear began to sink in, she decided to log on and see the posts for herself.
Waiting until her parents were out of the house and she was all alone, Athika opened X on her phone and saw the wall of hate comments for the first time, “I think I spent an hour just going through all these posts, and it was endless, just more and more and more horrible things. And then they managed to find my personal Instagram.”
Athika had over 300 message requests from strangers – some offering their support – but the majority shared hateful, anti-Muslim and misogynistic abuse directly to her inbox:
“People saying they want to shove pork sausages down my throat, people saying, ‘How are you the health ambassador? I can hear you walking all the way from Canada’, they were just horrible things.”
It feels incomprehensible to remember that this river of venom flowed because a young woman gave an interview on improving menstrual education.
The video was shared by Tommy Robinson, a well-known figure in far-right circles, significantly expanding its reach. But it was a personal video posted by far-right commentator Katie Hopkins, mocking Athika’s appearance, that had the most damaging impact. Reflecting on Hopkins’ post, Athika said:
“I think it stings more when it comes from a woman, because I think you and I are the same. We might be in different boats, but we're riding the same storm, we're riding the same wave. How can you do that to another woman?”
Women’s safety is not being overlooked; it's being traded.
Right-wing YouTube accounts Parliament Watch and British Stand also shared a video to their 378,000 subscribers, where a male content creator called Athika’s ‘appointment’ as an ambassador, which is a volunteer role, “DEI got out of hand”, claiming “this young lady clearly isn’t in any position to provide any advice on women’s health.”
His generalisation on whose voice deserves to be valued and included in conversations around reproductive health is not only loaded with racism and weight stigma but also demonstrates a clear lack of understanding and ignorance around women’s health, one that was echoed by others in the comments section.
Opening up about the historical, personal insecurities she has felt around her weight due to growing up with hormonal issues, Athika candidly shared, “I used to have a paediatric endocrinologist so I've grown up as a bigger girl and it's something that I still have a lot of insecurities about that I'm trying to work on,” adding “I've been trying to do my best, so to have your worst insecurities – almost like your own dirty ones – just aired out in front of everyone, it feels so humiliating.”
Athika has lived with polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS), a hormonal condition that can affect weight, periods and fertility, since childhood – one of the reasons she became so passionate about advocating for better menstrual health education.
Yes, you can still get pregnant if you have PCOS.
Yet for so many, they chose to cruelly and ignorantly dismiss Athika’s voice – either because of their own bigotry, or simply to jump on a viral moment – at the expense of a young woman trying to make a positive change. The virality of the abuse left Athika worried about her future, recalling the feelings of isolation and fear that she had felt at the time:
“That feeling in the morning when I was on my own, I was going through probably one of the most isolated feelings I’ve ever had. I remember just sitting there thinking will this ever go away? Will this always be a cloud over me? I felt like all my years of advocating, and now it's going to be tainted. My work's been tainted. Everything that I've done has been tainted.”
For the first time in our interview, Athika became visibly upset. It was her commitment to her work for others, the advocacy work she holds so dear, that moved her to tears.
While some people turned to hate, others rallied around Athika to lend their support and call out this harm. National Poet of Wales Hanan Issa, who first met Athika at an open-mic night in Cardiff, believes the deliberate misrepresentation stirred anti-Muslim sentiment.
Hanan says it creates conflict and distrust: “I’m angry that Athika has been used to stir up division when all of society needs more people like her who see care as an active verb – using their skills and energy to improve society as a whole.”
Platforms must treat image-based abuse as seriously as child sexual abuse and terrorism.
When she saw the negativity online, Hanan was inspired to act to call out this harmful rhetoric. Through a public call-out that saw over fifty people respond, Hanan – alongside fellow poet Mari Ellis Dunning, and novelist Gosia Buzzanca – pieced together a poem titled ‘They Call Us’ which directly challenges those who seek to oppress women with misogyny and gendered abuse.
Speaking about the project, Hanan said, “Being shamed or insulted or made to feel unsafe is something that most women can relate to. It shouldn’t be a universal experience, but, in some ways, it is,” She adds, “Words can be incredibly powerful to curate a sense of community and collective action. It’s no coincidence we are seeing a resurgence of interest in poetry at a time when the world seems so incredibly dangerous and uncertain.”
Seeing so many people rally around her provided Athika with a much-needed boost, “For all of this to be happening for me, I cried. I think I went from seeing the worst of humanity to seeing the absolute best.”
Now that the dust has settled and she’s had time to reflect, Athika has found her fire again,
“A lot of people were angry that I'm a Muslim, I'm a woman, I'm a person of colour, and that I don't look like your typical person that belongs in the media,” Athika continued “But I decided that I have the right to a voice and I'm going to use it in the way that I want to and that rattled a lot of people. And to be honest, that shows more about them than it does about me.”
Her interest in women’s health remains undiminished.
“It’s so important that we teach women to protect themselves, to educate themselves, to take care of themselves”, she says. “I know so many incredible women in my life, one being my mum. I just want to empower, I want to champion all the women, all our ancestors before us, that did so much to pave the path for us.”
And despite everything, her focus remains firmly on the work ahead.
In a world where online abuse is increasingly used to silence young women, Athika’s refusal to step back feels quietly powerful. After everything she’s endured, her determination to keep showing up – to keep speaking, advocating, and supporting other women – feels like its own form of resistance.
Today – and every day – the women fighting for a safer future deserve their flowers.
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