Build your own regex out of your user's input.

my @match = qw(; : -);
my $match = join('|', map { "\Q$_" } @match);

if ('random-text' =~ /$match/) {
  print "yep\n";
} else {
  print "nope\n";
}
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Note the use of \Q in case your users input regex metacharacters. \Q escapes them so they aren't treated as metacharacters.