Shafilea Iftikhar Ahmed (Punjabi and Urdu: شفیلیہ افتخار احمد; 14 July 1986 – 11 September 2003) was a British-Pakistani girl who was murdered by her parents, in an honour killing, at the age of 17, due to her refusal to accept a forced marriage.

Shafilea's parents were each imprisoned for a minimum of 25 years for her murder in August 2012. The possibility of other individuals having helped her parents to dispose of their daughter's body has been raised; after the parents' trial, the chief executive of the Bradford Council for Mosques encouraged anybody with information about the case to come forward with information to assist the police.

Shafilea's father, Iftikhar Ahmed, was born in the village of Uttam in Gujrat District of Pakistan. He is a native Punjabi speaker. He migrated to the UK with his family when he was 10 years old. Iftikhar then visited Denmark, and went to a party in his first weeks where he met a Danish woman named Vivi Lone Anderson, who was a Christian. They were married in 1980 in Copenhagen in a civil ceremony, and the couple later had a son named Tony. His family, particularly some of his male relatives, did not accept his relationship with Vivi.

The family remained in good spirits until he returned to Pakistan at the request of his family five years later due to the death of his mother. In 1985, he was forced into an arranged marriage by his family with his cousin, Farzana Ahmed, who threatened to commit suicide if he refused to marry her. After the wedding, he called Anderson to tell her that he was returning to the UK and to ask her to move in with him. He did not tell her that he had taken a second wife. The newlyweds moved into a predominantly Asian area of Bradford, West Yorkshire. Iftikhar and Farzana, who was by then heavily pregnant, had already moved in when Anderson arrived. Iftikhar then admitted that he married Farzana as their marriage had been planned by their family as children. Upset, Anderson filed for divorce and left the apartment the same month as she entered the country. Iftikhar and Anderson fell out of contact, until Iftikhar called to tell her that Farzana was giving birth to a daughter. Iftikhar told her that if he and his second wife had a girl, he would not allow her to grow up "without strict Islamic guidance". As soon as Iftikhar married Farzana, he distanced himself from the westernised culture he had formerly enjoyed.

Shafilea "Shaf" Ahmed was born on 14 July 1986 in Bradford. The family lived in the Great Sankey area of Warrington, Cheshire. Ahmed attended Great Sankey High School, its sixth-form centre, Barrowhall College, and Priestley College from September 2003. She was an A-Level student and hoped to become a solicitor.

Growing up, Shafilea suffered from child abuse, both physical and emotional. Her teacher reported seeing a bruise and a cut on her lip which Shafilea attributed to a "beating" from her parents. In February 2003, Shafilea ran away from home and asked social services to help her find a place to live; she regarded herself as homeless and was placed under emergency hotel accommodation by Warrington's Council. When contacting social services, Shafilea said that she had experienced domestic violence from the age of 15, and this was reported to have escalated in the months before her death. On her council application, she stated her experience of the abuse, saying "One parent would hold me whilst the other hit me." Her application was also due to the fear of being abducted to Pakistan by her parents and subjected to a forced child marriage. The services were seen as having been slow to help Shafilea.

During a trip to Pakistan in February 2003, Shafilea had swallowed bleach in what was reported to be a suicide attempt. Her parents claimed this had been a simple mistake and that she had drunk the bleach during a power outage because she thought it was mouth wash, a claim prosecutors later called "a stupid and obvious lie". Shafilea suffered extensive damage to her throat, for which she was having regular care at the time of her disappearance. According to media reports, she had turned down a suitor in a forced marriage during this trip, although her parents denied there being any attempts made to pressure her into agreeing to the marriage.

Shafilea disappeared on 11 September 2003, and had been missing for a week before her teachers informed the police. Subsequently, a major campaign urged anyone with information to come forward. Actress Shobna Gulati fronted the media campaign and read some of Shafilea's poems on television. A nationwide hunt was launched, but when Shafilea failed to seek treatment for her damaged throat, detectives became convinced she had been murdered in a possible honour killing connected to her rejection of her Pakistani suitor. Superintendent Geraint Jones told the Daily Mirror that "her family say a suitor had been found for her in Pakistan, but she was free to make her own decisions."