diff --git a/chatterbot/storage/sql_storage.py b/chatterbot/storage/sql_storage.py
index d3970cc87..eb4832400 100644
--- a/chatterbot/storage/sql_storage.py
+++ b/chatterbot/storage/sql_storage.py
@@ -116,7 +116,7 @@ def __init__(self, **kwargs):
         if database_name:
             self.database_uri = "sqlite:///" + database_name + ".db"
 
-        self.engine = create_engine(self.database_uri)
+        self.engine = create_engine(self.database_uri, convert_unicode=True)
 
         self.read_only = self.kwargs.get(
             "read_only", False