diff --git a/Lib/test/test_ssl.py b/Lib/test/test_ssl.py
index a5785d0..72a65b7 100644
--- a/Lib/test/test_ssl.py
+++ b/Lib/test/test_ssl.py
@@ -850,11 +850,14 @@
         ctx.load_verify_locations(cafile=CERTFILE, capath=None)
         ctx.load_verify_locations(BYTES_CERTFILE)
         ctx.load_verify_locations(cafile=BYTES_CERTFILE, capath=None)
+        ctx.load_verify_locations(cafile=BYTES_CERTFILE.decode('utf-8'))
         self.assertRaises(TypeError, ctx.load_verify_locations)
         self.assertRaises(TypeError, ctx.load_verify_locations, None, None, None)
         with self.assertRaises(IOError) as cm:
             ctx.load_verify_locations(WRONGCERT)
         self.assertEqual(cm.exception.errno, errno.ENOENT)
+        with self.assertRaises(IOError):
+            ctx.load_verify_locations(u'')
         with self.assertRaisesRegexp(ssl.SSLError, "PEM lib"):
             ctx.load_verify_locations(BADCERT)
         ctx.load_verify_locations(CERTFILE, CAPATH)
diff --git a/Modules/_ssl.c b/Modules/_ssl.c
index 5518032..5069012 100644
--- a/Modules/_ssl.c
+++ b/Modules/_ssl.c
@@ -2628,17 +2628,33 @@
     }
 
     if (cafile) {
-        cafile_bytes = PyString_AsEncodedObject(
-            cafile, Py_FileSystemDefaultEncoding, "strict");
-        if (!cafile_bytes) {
-            goto error;
+        if (PyString_Check(cafile)) {
+            Py_INCREF(cafile);
+            cafile_bytes = cafile;
+        } else {
+            PyObject *u = PyUnicode_FromObject(cafile);
+            if (!u)
+                goto error;
+            cafile_bytes = PyUnicode_AsEncodedString(
+                u, Py_FileSystemDefaultEncoding, NULL);
+            Py_DECREF(u);
+            if (!cafile_bytes)
+                goto error;
         }
     }
     if (capath) {
-        capath_bytes = PyString_AsEncodedObject(
-            capath, Py_FileSystemDefaultEncoding, "strict");
-        if (!capath_bytes) {
-            goto error;
+        if (PyString_Check(capath)) {
+            Py_INCREF(capath);
+            capath_bytes = capath;
+        } else {
+            PyObject *u = PyUnicode_FromObject(capath);
+            if (!u)
+                goto error;
+            capath_bytes = PyUnicode_AsEncodedString(
+                u, Py_FileSystemDefaultEncoding, NULL);
+            Py_DECREF(u);
+            if (!capath_bytes)
+                goto error;
         }
     }