The victim today spoke to news.com.au about her shock at being targeted and what happened before a passenger began filming the disturbing exchange.
Mila, a 66-year-old Filipino woman, said she was minding her own business on a trip to visit a sick friend when she began "coughing from time to time". She said one of the girls looked at her, as if "trying to intimidate me".
"The girl, she keeps staring at me. After a while I asked her to stop looking at me and that's when the other girl started yelling," Mila said.
Footage of the attack shows the situation quickly escalate.
"So what (if we look at you), who gives a f**k?" one of them shouts. When Mila responds, the attacks continue.
"Make me shut up, b**ch. I ain't gonna shut up. I ain't never gonna shut up, c**t.
"What are you going to do? Go back to your own f**king country," she says.
"I don't know you, you don't know me. It's my country, it's not your f***ing country."
Mila has been an Australian resident since 1985 so it turns out it is her country. She said she didn't want to fight back but was not going to let them speak to her like that.
The two girls continued yelling abuse in her direction until three women pressed the emergency button and moved down the carriage to intervene.
"I couldn't believe their mouths," Mila told news.com.au. "It's never happened to me before and I've been commuting for a while.
"It went for a long time, and it only stopped when they got off."
The girls exited the train at Highett in the city's southeast and ran from waiting Protective Safety Officers, Mila said. When she left the train at Flinders St in the CBD, she spoke to Metro Trains staff who called police. She said she was told a police officer would contact her, but they still haven't. News.com.au has sent the footage to Victoria Police.
Mila, who is recovering from cancer and says she "can't get stressed", has a message for the girls.
"I'm not worried about seeing them again. I just want them to know they can't act like that. They have to stop doing it. That behaviour is disgusting."
Footage of the incident was shared widely on social media on Tuesday night and commenters were quick to condemn the girls in the video.
"Not only do these people need to be held culpable, but so too the operator and government for not providing adequate on-board security," one person wrote.
"Why should she go back to her country when she just sitting on the train minding her own business? For all she knows she could have been born in Australia making her an Australian citizen. The lady doing no harm, just move along and shut up," another wrote.
Others praised the three women who moved down the carriage to intervene.
"Well done for supporting the victim," one woman wrote.