diff --git a/jbmc/src/java_bytecode/java_string_literals.cpp b/jbmc/src/java_bytecode/java_string_literals.cpp
index b090adfaef4..324988544ac 100644
--- a/jbmc/src/java_bytecode/java_string_literals.cpp
+++ b/jbmc/src/java_bytecode/java_string_literals.cpp
@@ -106,7 +106,7 @@ symbol_exprt get_or_create_string_literal_symbol(
   if(string_refinement_enabled)
   {
     const array_exprt data =
-      utf16_to_array(utf8_to_utf16_little_endian(id2string(value)));
+      utf16_to_array(utf8_to_utf16(id2string(value), false));
 
     struct_exprt literal_init(new_symbol.type);
     literal_init.operands().resize(jls_struct.components().size());
diff --git a/src/util/unicode.h b/src/util/unicode.h
index b8329ae1ba0..aeee035de1b 100644
--- a/src/util/unicode.h
+++ b/src/util/unicode.h
@@ -24,6 +24,7 @@ std::wstring widen(const std::string &s);
 
 std::string utf32_to_utf8(const std::basic_string<unsigned int> &s);
 
+std::wstring utf8_to_utf16(const std::string &in, bool swap_bytes);
 std::wstring utf8_to_utf16_big_endian(const std::string &);
 std::wstring utf8_to_utf16_little_endian(const std::string &);
 std::string utf16_little_endian_to_java(const wchar_t ch);