Perhaps this (untested)
use Unicode::String;

Unicode::String->stringify_as( 'utf8' ); 
my $string = "This is latin text.";
my $string_utf8 = Unicode::String::latin1( $string );
print $string_utf8;

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Never had to use it myself, but had this snippet from a long time ago.
/\ Sierpinski

In reply to Re^3: Regexp with unicode problem by sierpinski
in thread Regexp with unicode problem by demis

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