if you use utf8 only for strings and not for variable names, you could convert your special characters to \N{...} notation, such als "\N{EN DASH}"

Of course, it's your decision whether "Bj\N{LATIN SMALL LETTER O WITH DIAERESIS}rk" is more readable than something like "Bj�rk" or not ;-)

N.B.: For the \N escape to work in Perl older than 5.16, you need an explicit use charnames;