SHAFILEA Ahmed should have been celebrating her 29th birthday this week.

But the Bradford-born schoolgirl didn't even reach her 18th birthday.

In 2012 a trial heard that Shafilea was suffocated with a plastic bag at the family home because her desire to lead a Westernised life was bringing shame on the family. She was killed by her parents in September 2003 when she was 17.

Yesterday, on what would have been Shafilea's birthday, a memorial day for victims of so-called honour killings was held for the first time.

Charity Karma Nirvana, which supports victims and survivors of forced marriage, now a criminal offence, and 'honour' based abuse, staged a "Day of Memory" and has adopted the hashtag RememberShafilea on Twitter, calling on supporters to tweet in order to help create a plastic sculpture of the teenager using a 3D printer.

"Our aim is to counteract this bleak intention by using plastic in a positive way, to restore Shafilea's memory by creating a memorial in her honour, and in honour of the 141 other women and girls who have lost their lives to 'honour' violence since her death," the charity said on its website.

"A 3D printer is set to reveal a memorial sculpture of her in response to your tweets."

The memorial day, which the charity hopes to hold annually, comes after official figures revealed that UK police forces recorded more than 11,000 cases of honour-based violence between 2010 and 2014.

The crimes included abductions, false imprisonment and murder, according to the Iranian and Kurdish Women's Rights Organisation, but campaigners have warned that many offences go unreported as the perpetrators are close to the victims.

Earlier this year, the Henry Jackson Society estimated that there had been 29 honour killings or attempted murders in the UK over the same five-year period, based on cases reported in the media.

A conference is due to be held in London later this year to discuss the issue, as part of Karma Nirvana's Britain's Lost Women campaign.

Jasvinder Sanghera, chief executive of Karma Nirvana, said: "We are honouring the memories of the most honourable human beings where the perpetrators tried to erase them completely.

"It's also an opportunity to raise awareness about the issue of honour-based abuse and the scale of the problem in Britain."

Shafilea, who lived in Warrington, Cheshire, when she died, had suffered years of honour-based violence, including an attempted forced marriage. The 17-year-old's parents drugged her and flew her to Pakistan and later suffocated her to death in front of her siblings. In 2012 her parents, Iftikhar Ahmed, 52, and his wife Farzana, 49, were found guilty of her murder and were told they would both serve a minimum of 25 years in prison.

Jasvinder Sanghera says the memorial day could have a huge impact on encouraging girls and women to report abuse, as well as serving as a reminder of those who have gone missing.

"Shafilea was never put on the high-risk register, " says Jasvinder, who wants schools and other organisations working with young people to monitor those who may be at risk of honour-related violence or forced marriage.

When she was 15 Jasvinder was taken out of school to enter a forced marriage. When she refused to go ahead with it, her parents disowned her. She ran away from home and says no authorities questioned why she went missing.

This week schools in Bradford will break up for the summer holiday. Jasvinder says it's a "critical" time for at-risk young people who may be taken overseas and forced into marriage.

Last year the Telegraph & Argus discovered, under the Freedom of Information Act, that 96 children failed to return to school after the 2013 summer break - the highest number in three years.

Jasvinder wants statistics to be made more widely available. "There will be children in classrooms today who are at risk from being taken abroad and forced to marry this summer," she said. "Have we spotted them? Is anyone going to question why they are missing when they fail to return after the summer holiday?"

"Unless this is monitored more, victims are going to become invisible to the system, like I was when I went missing.

"Professionals trained to work with young people often don't want to get involved because they see it as a 'cultural issue'. It isn't - it's a child protection issue."