Dating had never been easy for Kim Jeong-soon. In her native North Korea, couples holding hands were chastised for “disturbing public order”, and when she arrived in South Korea potential suitors were often repelled by the mere fact of the country of her birth.

It was with a certain reservation, then, that she went on a blind date with a South Korean man three years ago; Kim Jong-il – whose name in the south is pronounced slightly differently to the late North Korean dictator. They dined on fried chicken and beer and launched right into conversations about marriage, divorce and what a future together might look like. “South Korean men are more attentive and considerate compared with North Korean men, and they’re also more friendly,” Kim said. “But I was really surprised when I first saw the way South Korean men dressed … in some ways they seemed to care about fashion more than women.”

Six months after that first date they were married. Not only was it a cause for celebration for them, it was another success story for the woman who arranged their meeting. Han Yoo-jin has helped about 300 couples marry since she started her matchmaking company, Love Storya, four years ago. Amid a skewed gender ratio, cultural differences and a desire among many North Korean refugees for a sense of security in their adopted home, an industry has sprung up catering for lonely South Korean men and North Korean women interested in marriage.

Han’s own relationship makes her the literal poster child for her business. She met her South Korean husband at a party for prospective clients, and photos of the two on their wedding day fill her company’s website. Her service is part matchmaker, part therapist because frequently mediates conflicts between couples, sometimes even after their wedding.

“There’s an old saying, ‘If you manage to get three couples married, then you go to heaven’, which shows how challenging it is for two people to get married,” said Han.

North Korean Kim Jeong-soon and South Korean Kim Jong-il on their wedding day in 2016.

Hong Seung-woo, another matchmaker, says the divorce rate among North-South couples is about 5%, lower than the South Korean national average. But the industry has its problems, not least the fact that in the south suspicion of North Koreans still remains.

“In South Korea, people are taught to think North Koreans are all bad people, and I thought something really bad would happen to me for engaging with a North Korean,” said Hong, who started his matchmaking firm in 2006 after marrying Ju Jeong-ok, a North Korean woman.

The industry has also faced criticism for reinforcing stereotypes about North Korean women. About 72% of the 31,000 North Korean refugees living in the south are women, and the past five years has seen an even higher proportion of female refugees, according to data from the south’s unification ministry.

“There are concerns that these women may be excessively commercialised,” said Kim Soo-kyung, a research fellow at the government-funded Korea Institute for National Unification in Seoul. She analysed marketing practices by marriage brokers and was dismayed by the overemphasis on “pure Korean blood” in describing advantages, and how women were portrayed as submissive. “I’m worried this will lead to the public perceiving North Korean women as sexual objects, rather than individuals.”

Q&A What's the history of conflict between North and South Korea? Show North and South Korea have been divided since the end of the Korean War (1950-53), and except for about a decade ending in 2008, relations between the two have remained frosty. The two nations technically remain in a state of war, since a peace treaty was never signed. There have been occasional outbreaks of violence, most recently in 2010 when 50 people were killed when a South Korean navy corvette was sunk and several islands close to the border were attacked. This meeting could touch on a formal truce but this is also not the first time North Korea has expressed a willingness to abandon its nuclear ambitions. A deal with the US, Japan and South Korea in the 1990s was meant to give the North civilian nuclear power without the ability to build a weapon, but the reactor was never finished. North Korea pledged to relinquish its nuclear programme in 2007 in exchange for sanctions relief and fuel, but later pulled out of that agreement and expelled inspectors in 2009. Read a full explainer on the Korea summit here

Han’s story speaks to this concern. She left North Korea at the insistence of her grandmother, who fled across the border to China during the 1950-53 Korean war and lamented the limited opportunities available for women in her home country. Han’s aunt served as a cautionary tale. She studied physics and envisioned a career building weapons for the north’s nuclear programme, Han said, but became a housewife after graduation.

It is this deeply entrenched patriarchy that has been instrumental south of the border in portraying North Korean women as dutiful wives fulfilling traditional gender roles, “like how things were in the south in the 60s and 70s”, Han said.

North Korean women tend to prefer financially stable men – those with bad credit are screened out – and “bigger men, ones that look a bit like Kim Jong-un”, Han said with a smile.

After three failed escape attempts, – each time receiving increasingly harsh punishments in one of the north’s infamous labour camps – Han arrived in South Korea in 2001. She worked as a highway toll collector and then in a string of matchmaking firms before striking out on her own.

She is confident that her business will endure despite the proliferation of apps such as Tinder. “North Korean refugees prefer handling things face-to-face,” she said, adding that most were deeply sceptical of technology, and concerned about revealing even mundane personal details online.

Additional reporting by Kyungmi Choi