See:

	https://bugzilla.xfce.org/show_bug.cgi?id=12294

--- panel-plugin/xkb-cairo.c	2015-02-27 21:53:11.000000000 +0000
+++ panel-plugin/xkb-cairo.c
@@ -159,6 +159,5 @@ xkb_cairo_draw_label (cairo_t *cr,
     normalized_group_name = xkb_util_normalize_group_name (group_name);
 
-    if (!normalized_group_name ||
-        !g_utf8_validate (normalized_group_name, -1, NULL))
+    if (!normalized_group_name)
     {
         g_object_unref (layout);
--- panel-plugin/xkb-config.c	2015-02-27 21:57:16.000000000 +0000
+++ panel-plugin/xkb-config.c
@@ -142,5 +142,5 @@ xkb_config_xkb_description (XklConfigIte
     description = g_strdup (config_item->name);
   else
-    description = g_locale_to_utf8 (ci_description, -1, NULL, NULL, NULL);
+    description = g_strdup (ci_description);
 
   return description;