diff --git a/Makefile.PL b/Makefile.PL
index f2d31e2..d33625d 100644
--- a/Makefile.PL
+++ b/Makefile.PL
@@ -10,11 +10,12 @@ perl_version '5.006';
 build_requires 'Test::More' => 0.47;
 build_requires 'Test::POE::Client::TCP' => 0.10;
 build_requires 'Test::POE::Server::TCP' => 0.16;
-requires 'POE' => 1.003;
-requires 'HTTP::Status' => 0;
-requires 'HTTP::Request' => 0;
+requires 'Encode'         => 0;
+requires 'POE'            => 1.003;
+requires 'HTTP::Status'   => 0;
+requires 'HTTP::Request'  => 0;
 requires 'HTTP::Response' => 0;
-requires 'HTTP::Parser' => 0.04;
+requires 'HTTP::Parser'   => 0.04;
 auto_provides;
 githubmeta;
 WriteAll();
diff --git a/lib/POE/Filter/HTTP/Parser.pm b/lib/POE/Filter/HTTP/Parser.pm
index 38e043c..3fdf5d0 100644
--- a/lib/POE/Filter/HTTP/Parser.pm
+++ b/lib/POE/Filter/HTTP/Parser.pm
@@ -6,6 +6,7 @@ use HTTP::Parser;
 use HTTP::Status qw(status_message RC_BAD_REQUEST RC_OK RC_LENGTH_REQUIRED);
 use base 'POE::Filter';
 use vars qw($VERSION);
+use Encode qw[encode_utf8];
 
 $VERSION = '1.02';
 
@@ -110,7 +111,7 @@ sub _put_response {
     push @headers, $status_line;
     push @headers, $_->headers_as_string("\x0D\x0A");
 
-    push @raw, join("\x0D\x0A", @headers, "") . $_->content;
+    push @raw, encode_utf8(join("\x0D\x0A", @headers, "")) . $_->content;
   }
 
   \@raw;
@@ -135,7 +136,7 @@ sub _put_request {
     push @headers, $req_line;
     push @headers, $_->headers_as_string("\x0D\x0A");
 
-    push @raw, join("\x0D\x0A", @headers, "") . $_->content;
+    push @raw, encode_utf8(join("\x0D\x0A", @headers, "")) . $_->content;
   }
 
   \@raw;