The women Liz Hayes, Tara Brown and Allison Langdon admire most: '60 Minutes' celebrates International Women's Day

With a notebook in one hand and a passport in the other, these journalists are constantly travelling to far away – often dangerous – locations around the world to share a unique, sometimes beautiful, sometimes terrifying window into the unknown.

Liz Hayes, Tara Brown and Allison Langdon have bravely made their way to the forefront of journalism as some of the most respected reporters in the country.

LISTEN: The theme for International Women's Day in 2018 is #PressforProgress. Here's how to do just that. (Post continues.)

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Each have raised the bar for women in media, and yet equally acknowledge that their careers are the sum of the extraordinary people they have interviewed over the years – many of them women.

In celebration of International Women’s Day, the 60 Minutes reporters pause to reflect on some of the awe-inspiring women who have generously opened their lives and shared their incredible stories with Australian audiences. Stories that range from overcoming adversity, excelling in a chosen field or leaving behind a moving legacy.

“To celebrate the amazing, the magnificent, the very best of mankind simply inspires us all,” Hayes reflects.

“But I have a special place in my heart for the greatness of women because historically it's not been an easy road.”

Just last year, Hayes accompanied Joanne Lees as she returned to the Australian outback 15 years after she was kidnapped and her boyfriend Peter Falconio was notoriously murdered – a true story of survival.

“Not too many of us will ever understand what it is like to come face to face with evil, to have to fight for your life, endure the brutal murder of your partner and then have no one believe you,” says Hayes.

“When it's all said and done she is a woman who's had to rise up in ways few of us can imagine, because to have done anything less would have meant her demise.”

WATCH: 'The Joanne Lees Story', part one. (Post continues.)

For 17 years, Brown has reported on the good, the back and the very ugly that the world has to offer.

Reflecting on her career, she says; “Some of the most inspirational women I’ve met during my career at 60 Minutes are the Kurdish female fighters of the YDJ.”

“I was privileged to meet many of the young women who made up the ranks and led the fight against ISIS in the northern part of Syria.”

In 2015, Brown travelled to the fierce frontline in Syria where a unit of fearless local women were not only battling the world’s most brutal enemy, but extraordinarily winning the war.

“These are women who value education, career, independence and family so much that they put their own futures on hold, risked their own lives, so their own community of Rojava could continue to enjoy these freedoms.”

“The very freedoms and equality ISIS was doing all it could to destroy. Their fight against the terror organisation, they told me, was not just for themselves but for all women.”

WATCH: 'Winning the War'. (Post continues.)

For Allison Langdon, it is the plight of marine scientist and acclaimed photographer Cristina Mittermeier who has moved her the most.

“There are so many inspiring women making extraordinary contributions around the world,” says Langdon.

“Women who at great risk to their own safety promote equality, whether that be the right to an education for young girls, access to healthcare or pushing for more representation politically. It's a privilege to highlight their efforts."

“But there are few people in this world who have overwhelmed me as Cristina Mittermeier has done.”

Langdon first met Cristina deep in the Amazon jungle, as she was desperately trying to draw attention to the plight of the Kayapo Indians whose homes and very existence was at risk because of the Brazilian Government’s plan to build the world’s third largest hydro dam.

Shaping up as the world’s biggest ever environmental battle, sixty such dams were being planned all along the Amazon, flooding vast areas of rainforest and wiping out the native villages.

Cristina Mittermeier took it on as her responsibility to fight for the native villages and highlight their struggle.

“As a mother-of-two Cristina is an inspiration,” says Langdon.

“She truly believes we can make this beautiful planet of ours a better place.”

“Her main work these days is advocating for ocean conservation. She understands if conservation is to succeed you need to reach people emotionally, and the best way of doing that is not through sharing scientific date (as she once focussed on) but rather visual imagery. Her photograph of a starving polar bear, rummaging through a garbage bin has been viewed by more than 2.5 billion people.”

“The world needs more people like Cristina, I admire her passion and understand her anger at the lack of activity around the global problem.”

WATCH: 'Damned'. (Post continues.)

Today the 60 Minutes reporters not only look back fondly on the females they have interviewed, but look forward to those that are still to come.

As Hayes reminds us all, “it is a truth that many of our mothers and grandmothers were under appreciated and overlooked because they were women.”

“I love nothing better than reminding everyone that that is not how it should ever be.”