Yes but only if it's a character-string, i.e. the utf8 flag is set.
But the OP said the flag is not set.
edit
not sure what -CSD means.
update
got it perlrun
The -C flag controls some of the Perl Unicode features.
As of 5.8.1, the -C can be followed either by a number or a list of option letters. The letters, their numeric values, and effects are as follows; listing the letters is equal to summing the numbers.
I 1 STDIN is assumed to be in UTF-8
O 2 STDOUT will be in UTF-8
E 4 STDERR will be in UTF-8
S 7 I + O + E
i 8 UTF-8 is the default PerlIO layer for input streams
o 16 UTF-8 is the default PerlIO layer for output streams
D 24 i + o
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