In memoriam: Female trailblazers who leapt over barriers to fight for their sisters

Adrienne Germain, a women's health and human rights activist, was once on a small plane returning from a visit to a family planning clinic in a remote part of Brazil. A thunderstorm and loss of air-to-ground communication resulted in an emergency crash landing in the Amazon. Unfazed, Germain, already bruised from a head-on car collision a few days before in Rio de Janeiro, walked 17 hours out of the forest and got a ride back to her temporary headquarters in the city of Manaus, where she continued her work supporting women's health projects.

Germain was one of five female pioneers in the world of global health and women's rights who died this year. Though you might not recognize their names, each left a legacy. They helped countless women, lifting them out of poverty, finding better ways to treat their diseases and paving the way for them to become scientists and public health leaders.

Adrienne Germain: 'A rare combination of passion, total devotion, intelligence and integrity'

Head-on collisions and plane crashes in the jungle couldn't stop Germain, nor could endless meetings or narrow-minded notions of what poor women need to thrive.